Andrew Crighton
Life Editor
Election season is upon ISU. On Monday, Jan. 25, filing opened for ASISU candidates.
Students who are interested in running for ASISU office positions can file their names and begin the work to become eligible for the election in mid-March.
Hailey Dugan, the ASISU Election Commissioner, explained the process students go through.
A student must gather 150 signatures as part of the campaign packet. These can be gathered in classes or walking around campus, among other ways. Along with the petition, students must submit an academic transcript, deposit sheet and an expenditure sheet by Feb. 17, at 5 p.m.
On Feb. 19, there is a mandatory candidate meeting for those who successfully made the deadline. The rules for campaigning are explained at this meeting. After the meeting, campaigning is officially open.
March 10 and 11 ASISU will hold the Senator’s speeches and candidate debate in Rendezvous.
Online voting opens on March 15, and will remain open for two days, until March 17.
This will be the first election that Dugan will oversee as Commissioner, but explained that according to her peers who have experience in the elections, it is really hard to say how competitive this year will be.
“It really depends on the person who’s running. Sometimes you have eight people who want to run for the College of Arts and Letters, sometimes it’s four,” Dugan said. “I’m just hoping we get a lot of interest, because a lot of people don’t know about ASISU.”
Some of the ways that ASISU hopes to expand interest is by trying to increase the accessibility.
This will be the first year that senators’ speeches and candidate debate will be recorded and posted to the ASISU YouTube page; an email with links will be sent out to students in an email blast.
“My hope is that people will try to click on the YouTube link and see what these candidates have to say, and maybe spark a conversation about what the school needs,” Dungan said.
Dugan hopes that this year voter turnout will be high, partially because 2016 is a year of elections, with the Presidential election coming up in November.
In the 2015 election, only 2,294 students voted, out of the 21,278 eligible voters, an averaged 10.78 percent turnout.
For individuals who are curious about running for office but would like more information about the process there will be two candidate information meetings: one on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. and on Feb. 5 at 7 p.m., both of which will be held in the Student Union quad lounge.
