Three slates will campaign over the next three weeks to prove to students who should take the executive board positions of not just Student Government Association, but of the student body.
All three slates received violations for early campaigning; campaigning isn’t permitted until after the Nomination Convention, which took place at 8:30 p.m. on Monday. Spark received three violations, totaling in $110 in fees. Cardinal United lost $45 of their mandatory $200 bond for two violations. Fusion will pay $30 for one early campaigning violation.
Charges are determined by the elections board based on the amount of people affected by the early campaigning. Kevin Thurman, elections board chairman, said he believed each of the slates early campaigning was most likely accidental, but the job of the elections board is to make sure the slates are following the SGA elections code.
“It think it’s important that [the early campaigning rules] exists because we don’t want this to turn into a process where one slate has an unfair advantage over another in terms of they’ve gotten to campaign for longer because they knew of their slate in August whereas the others did not put one together until January,” he said.
Spark, who was nominated first, is comprised of presidential candidate Malachi Randolph, vice presidential candidate Chloe Anagnos, secretary candidate Giang Tran and treasurer candidate Kevin Mullaney.
Randolph said the most important part of Spark’s campaign is built around relationships.
“Everything we do is based on making a relationship with who we are doing it with, and that is one of the biggest things we are pushing with this campaign,” the Spark presidential candidate said.
Cardinal United is Zeyne Guzeldereli for president, Alexa Gates for vice president, Fayeann Hurley for secretary and Brandon Pope for treasurer.
Guzeldereli said a strength of Cardinal United’s slate is feasibility.
“The feasibility of our entire platform [will set us apart] because we have four categories with several platform points on there, all doable within the year’s time that we will take office,” the Cardinal United presidential candidate said. “We’ve had meetings with administrators and other students, and we know that each point is accomplishable.”
Fusion, the last slate nominated Monday night, is made up of presidential candidate Alex Sventeckis, vice presidential Nick Wilkey, secretary candidate Kylie Marcus and treasurer candidate Matthias Dorau.
Sventeckis said the executive board candidates on Fusion bring a diverse perspective to their campaign.
“We have an orientation leader, Kylie, that brings a certain skill set with it,” he said. “Nick Wilkey is our senator, so he brings the SGA feel to it, Matthias is part of the greek life... and I kind of tie all three of them together.”
One slate was nominated jokingly by Fusion presidential candidate Wilkey. Alliance 2.0 included current President Chris Wilkey, Vice President Heather Closson, Secretary Brittany Weaver and Treasurer J.P. Bechtel in a different order of executive board positions. Presidential candidate Bechtel accepted the nomination, and they immediately withdrew from the race.
Thurman said he seemed to be the only person on the elections board who wasn’t aware of the joke before it happened, and it served as a lighthearted ending to an hour and a half Nomination Convention.
Students also applied for senator positions at the Nomination Convention. Thirteen students applied to be At-Large senators, and there are 17 At-Large seats available. To fill the 10 off-campus senator seats, seven students applied. Late applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Jennifer Jones-Hall, director of Student Life, and Mike Gillilan, director of Student Rights, checked each of the candidates’ records for both academic and probationary restrictions. All candidates passed.
Students will have three chances to see executive slates debate during the three-week campaigning period. A treasurer or secretary candidate from each slate will debate on SGA Debate Coordinator Zach Hartley’s radio show at 3 p.m. on Sunday at WCRD 91.3.
Rachel Podnar and Chris Stephens contributed to this story.
