With Boston University Student Government Executive Board elections starting in a week, Student Election Commission held an information session for students interested in running Monday night, hoping this year’s election will focus on candidates’ policy and result in a more productive SG for next school year.
Eleven students attended, all of whom are planning to run for positions on SG Executive Board. Co-chairs Christina Lucas and Ramya Ravindrababu, both former executive board members of the College of Arts and Sciences Student Government, led the meeting.
Despite this, both Ravindrababu and Lucas said they are excited for the election and believe the new policies have great potential for improving SG’s performance.
The meeting mainly consisted of a briefing on new policies for this year’s election. All of the policies have been completely revamped to ensure a stable infrastructure and transparency within SG, Lucas said.
“We want to have an open door of communication [and respect] at the bottom line,” the CAS senior said.
One of the biggest differences is the new requirement for students to run as one unit on a slate — a president, an executive vice president, a vice president of financial affairs and a vice president of internal affairs — as opposed to previous years, when students were allowed to run individually, Lucas said.
Although in previous years, candidates could group themselves together by campaigning as a slate, during the voting process, students were required to cast a vote for each candidate individually. Hence, this year’s executive board consists of four members from two separate slates.
Both commissioners hope this change will increase productivity in the next year.
“We think it’s really important to keep that cohesion within [a] group,” said Lucas, “All [the] policies would go in line in the next year.”
Running as slates would also shift the focus away from individual popularity and put more emphasis on the slate’s policies. When voting for slates, students will only see the slates’ names and not the names of its individual members, Lucas said.
Additionally, the rules for campaign funding have changed. In previous years, SG gave each campaign $100 from SG’s budget. Now each slate will receive $500. This way, campaigners can purchase more campaigning materials with the money without having to worry about personal expenses, Lucas said.
The commissioners also wanted to address donations, a controversial factor from previous years.
“We aren’t 100 percent settled on it, but we’re thinking about eliminating the idea of donations altogether,” Ravindrababu, a senior in CAS, said.
Ravindrababu and Lucas said they are steadfast on keeping the election’s focal point on policy. By eliminating donations, everyone would be able to start off equally, Lucas said.
Another part of the session’s conversation revolved around candidates’ complaints pertaining to campaign rule violations and how they would be resolved.
While the commissioners said they want the students running for a position to feel comfortable submitting a complaint, they want to avoid receiving as many complaints as they did in past years. The students in attendance agreed they would avoid entering trivial complaints.
Lucas and Ravindrababu also clarified they will not address complaints once the election is over and the results are announced. If someone decides to accuse the competition of a violation, the commissioners will make these two parties discuss the accusation promptly.
Other topics the commissioners covered included campaign rules, voting procedures and finances.
They said they hope their new policies will be upheld through the following years and can serve as a stable infrastructure for elections to come.
Two slates submitted their slate template to run: Your BU and B-trU.
The campaigning period will start next week on March 27, and students will vote from April 3 to April 10.
A series of events are scheduled during that period to familiarize students with the slates’ policies.
The first will be a meet and greet with the slates, which will serve as a way to get everyone ready for the election season before the voting period begins.
A few days later, slates will participate in a 60-minute debate, which is followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer segment.
On the first day of the voting period, SEC will host a press conference where slates participate in another 15-minute question-and-answer round for voters to ask about each slates’ policies.
Although the student body has been relatively involved with the past elections, Ravindrababu and Lucas predict there won’t be as big of a turnout this year. Ravindrababu said this is because people have lost grasp of what SG’s mission is.
“I think people are feeling very apathetic toward [SG],” Ravindrababu, said. “People feel like Student Government is a joke in a lot of ways. Part of that is from people disrespecting the process of what student government is supposed to stand for.”
SG is supposed to strive toward the betterment of the BU community as well as improve on students’ academics and experience, she added.
