SGA election coverage | The Wright State Guardian
The 2021 Student Government Association (SGA) Elections are currently underway. Here is what students should know and how this semester is different than previous years.
Schedule
SGA’s 2021 elections are in full swing. Election application packets were due on Feb. 26 and campaigning began on March 8.
At the time of publication, there are ten candidates running for different positions.
Voting begins on March 15, and campaigning and voting comes to a close on March 18. Students are encouraged to vote for those who will represent them the best in SGA.
Student elections committee (SEC)
The main members of the SEC include SGA Chief Justice Dai’Shanae Moore, Chief of Staff Eli Smith and Chief Policy Officer Hannah Weisgerber.
This committee was created in order to uphold the bylaws of the SGA elections and deal with any violations that may occur.
“If somebody violates some section of the election regulations, they would force the SEC to make a decision of, ‘is this person guilty, is this person not guilty?’ We figure out what’s going on,” Smith said.
While there have been no violations this round for SGA elections, the committee is still ready to handle issues.
Online elections
According to Smith, doing petitioning online has saved them some extra trouble, especially when they had to double check signatures and manually write them down.
To put this in perspective, each candidate running needs a rage from 100 to 300 signatures for their specific role. President and vice president need 300 from any student at Wright State University (WSU), but the senator for the college of liberal arts (COLA) would need 100 signatures from specifically COLA students.
Being online makes it easier to double check student UID’s, and make sure they are allowed to sign for that candidate.
“Because of COVID last year and this year, elections have been very difficult to handle. I would also say that last year some outdated bylaws made it even more difficult. Our bylaws basically made it a rule that people couldn’t use social media, but we’ve since updated those and it’s been going well,” Weisgerber said.
According to Moore, this updated version of the bylaws provides a way for commuting and online students to be more involved with SGA elections.
In the future, SGA may return to strictly paper, but as for now, the hybrid system stays.
That Wright State Guardian contacted SGA for a complete list of the ten candidates. We are still awaiting a response.
