The pseudo-slate that wants to represent you in Student Government Association has reached a hiccup in its campaign, and it has only been one day.
The nomination convention to announce a slate's intention to run for SGA was Monday night, and the only slate that showed up had errors in its application. Students can still apply to be on a slate if the appropriate materials are ready by Thursday's second nomination convention.
Granted, at least someone showed up to this year's convention, unlike in Spring 2008 when nobody came.
The error arose with the 400 student signatures needed to run. Some of the students who signed their names omitted an address, and Elections Chair Marco Pretell-Vazquez said some signatures "did not appear genuine."
Unless another slate materializes before Thursday, this group will represent the students in the university and have an $80,000 budget.
That's a lot of money to give to a group that can't even manage 400 signatures.
However, students are only human and this could be the only mistake the pseudo-slate will have.
We hope it is.
The group's ability to be responsible is called into question, though, when there wasn't enough foresight for the students to realize not all the signatures were valid.
Although, the students who sign petitions also have an obligation to be truthful if they choose to put their names down. Not being truthful in situations like this can only lead to problems for someone down the road, be it yourself or a stranger.
That said, the students running could have planned ahead and evaluated the list of students to double-check that they had enough and they were viable.
The student body is skeptical by nature and quick to assess situations and make judgments. We have to be - our lives are too busy to allow us time to critically evaluate every scenario in front of us.
A consequence of the slate's irresponsibility is that students will now remember them as the slate that needed a second chance their first day.
Campus Alliance, the current SGA slate, had a stigma to overcome when they entered office as well. They were the slate that was created in a week.
However, throughout the year they worked toward redeeming themselves.
Who knows if the pseudo-slate will have the same success. It could remain unorganized and simply spend a year running in circles. It could be the best, most effective SGA slate yet.
Either way, this is not the way to start a campaign.
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