Campus, CSU, News

ASI elections are right around the corner

Associated Students Inc. election campaigns will begin March 11 despite a lack of candidates running. Currently there are seven elected positions that are currently vacant, including two senator positions.

According to ASI’s website, “Candidates will be listed … on the student government website, and outside the Student Government Office in the University Student Union, Room 311.”

The elections will fill a myriad of positions including ASI president, vice president, treasurer and senator. There are 28 positions being voted on in the election, which will take place from March 18-20.

ASI President Genesis Jara commented on the difficulties of the election process.

“We’ve had a really hard time filling the positions,” Jara said.

Voting will take place after a period of general campaigning, prior to this time candidates will not be allowed to campaign either verbally or nonverbally, according to ASI’s website.

Students will receive an email to kick off the voting process and all voting will be conducted electronically.

The deadline for application was initially Feb. 15, however, there were too few candidates to fill all the positions leading to the first deadline.

Jara added that since there were so few candidates interested, and so many open positions, the pushback of the application deadline was necessary. She also compared this year’s difficulties to previous elections.

“We have had a hard time in the past, but this year feels worse,” Jara said.

Junior business major Syed Ahmed expressed interest in the election but did not run due to scheduling constraints.

“I just didn’t have the time,” Ahmed said. “The energy just wasn’t there.”

The first campaign event takes place on the friendship walk in the University Student Union from noon to 1:30 p.m. March 13. The second event will be held in front of the 49er Shops Bookstore and will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 14.

 

One Comment

  1. Avatar
    Dale R Lendrum

    Due to COVID 19 and the campus moving to alternative instruction, the Associated Students should extend the campaigning and voting period for the ASI elections. The ASI Elections have already been negatively impacted as ASI dramatically cut its ASI Elections budget and campaign period for 2019 – 2020, which, along with the impact of COVID 19, has negatively impacted the ability of lesser known candidates to campaign, debate, and engage with the student body in a manner that provides election equity. Slashing ASI elections budgets and reducing the period of time folks are permitted to campaign, favors the incumbency and perpetuates a year’s long cycle of students not wanting to run for ASI office. Those who chose to threw their hats into the ring for this election deserve no less.

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