In two eleventh-hour appointments at last night’s Executive Board meeting, Student Union President Ethan Clay named two commissioners to the Student Union Elections Commission, allowing the body to function for this week’s Senate elections.

The commission, which oversees the elections of the Student Union E-Board and Senate, needs seven commissioners to officially function, according to Clay.

However, the resignations of former Chairman John Macom and Commissioner Tara Howard after the last Senate meeting in May, left the body paralyzed with only five commissioners.

While the Senate must approve SUEC appointments, the resignations came after last year’s Senate disbanded, and with this year’s Senate elections looming at the end of this week, there is no sitting Senate to ratify the appointments. Therefore, Clay had to call on special presidential powers to appoint the commissioners.

“I have to appoint someone to get us out of this constitutional mess,” Clay said yesterday afternoon before the E-board meeting. “My presidential powers allow me to appoint someone if there is no Senate to ratify it.”

But Clay said after this week’s election the Senators would be able to ratify the SUEC commissioners.

“This is one of the areas where the constitution is lacking,” Clay said. “But that’s why we’re working to improve the constitution. I don’t think it’s necessarily in the constitution about [appointing SUEC commissioners], but the president is able to appoint members to the E-board or other union members if there is no Senate to ratify them.”

According to SUEC Chairwoman Jeanette Jankiewicz, the appointments were not last minute.

“At the end of last year we had seven but then there were two resignations,” Jankiewicz said.

The new commissioners, College of Communication junior Theresa Van Den Boogaard and School of Management junior Chris Pedersen, were selected for their interest in the position and their studies, Jankiewicz said

Van Den Boogaard, an advertising major, will fit into SUEC’s plans to more effectively advertise elections and to do so in new ways this year, Jankiewicz said.

According to Jankiewicz, SUEC wants to do “a different kind of advertising that is more effective than just handing out papers.

“The main reason people don’t vote is because people don’t think that it affects them,” she said.

Van Den Boogaard agreed flushing out voters on BU’s sprawling urban campus can be a challenge.

“It’s really hard to get the vote out on this campus because everyone is so spaced out on Commonwealth Avenue,” Van Den Boogaard said.

According to Van Den Boogaard, the decision to appoint her as a commissioner was made months ago, but constitutional technicalities prevented her from being appointed until now.

“The decision was made last year but I think that I had to wait until the new government was in place,” she said.

Jankiewicz said that Pedersen’s background in management could help SUEC with things like finances.

“It sounds like a lot of fun — I’m looking forward to it,” Pedersen said after his appointment last night.

“I like management and stuff, so I figured why not practice it in some way or another,” he said.