Students Guide on What to Know About the Annual SGA Elections
Cassandra Stec | cmstec@butler.edu
It is once again election season on Butler’s campus and the Judicial members of the Student Government Association are getting ready to supervise and assist with the weeklong campaigns. The SGA elections for Senate as well as President and Vice President occur annually near the end of February. Every year, a week of campaigning is followed by students voting for their peers for positions. The behind the scenes as to what students are to expect when it comes to election week was previously never clearly explained to the student population, unless you went to the meeting where President and VP hopefuls declared their intent to run for office.
Katie Stanley, sophomore psychology and religious studies major, and Kate Rashevich, first year political science major, make up the SGA Election Oversight Commission. Rashevich is the Judicial board Chair of Finance and the Vice Chair of Elections. Stanley is the Chair of the Election Oversight Commission and fellow justice.
Cassandra Stec: What does your position entail?
Kate Rashevich: If there are ever any financial issues, I am the one who looks them over and reviews them. In terms of elections, I am here to assist Katie and anything she needs.
Katie Stanley: I oversee timeline creation as well as different things like equity and election fairness. I’m also in charge of planning any events, handling any expenditures, and helping candidates come up with questions that they have about the rules. Before every election, I revise the election guidelines; the election guidelines are the rules and procedures specifically for candidates. I also host the candidate meeting and I’m the point of contact for anything elections related.
CS: What kind of campaigning and outreach should students expect to see this upcoming week?
KS: A lot of the candidates running are Senate candidates; as of now, every single Senate position will have at least one person in it. No seat will be empty. Initially both seats for the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences were open, but someone has since offered to take their place in that college. Campaigning can be different things from seeing posters around campus to the candidates approaching them and talking to them, which is especially what the presidential candidates will be doing. It’ll be a lot of talking and socializing with people. You can expect free food items, but most of the campaigning is going to happen through social media, which obviously is OK and preferred, especially under the confines and the guides of a global pandemic; so social media has always been like the primary place for people to campaign. However, hopefully eventually most of the campaigning can be done in person because everybody wants to know who everyone is and what they’re like.
CS: Are there any differences between the rules for Senators and the President/VP?
KS: The rules are the same [for both potential Senators and President/VP]; however, the biggest difference is the amount of money they get to spend. The Presidential campaign gets a $500 budget and that money comes from the SGA budget, which comes from the student activity fee. So that money is allotted for presidential candidates to spend as they see fit. There are guidelines as to what they can't buy and rules about what the things that they buy can be. Senators get a $50 budget and they only get that money if they're contested, which, while every seat will have at least one person in it, not every seat that is available is contested. This year the contested seats are College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Jordan College of the Arts. They still have to follow the same rules though. If a Senate candidate wants to buy Twinkies or something to put their logo on and hand out, they can do that; but it's not a very common thing just because the constituency is limited.
CS: What kinds of campaigning are students not allowed to do?
KS: Students are not allowed to solicit door to door, harass people, they can't spend more money than what's permitted, and slandering the university, SGA, the other candidates, or anyone in general is not allowed. If you have a billboard or a bulletin board, you can't post more than one flyer on that bulletin board for your campaign. All posters have to be approved by the Student Involvement and Leadership Office [SIL] and follow university posting guidelines. Campaigns aren’t supposed to have catered events, they can pass out individually wrapped food items, masks, t-shirts, hats, buttons, stickers, etc. Those things are usually the primary sort of campaigning that happens for the presidential campaigns. The most important thing for the candidates to do is to get everything approved by the Election Oversight Commission before they do it, that way there's nothing going on behind our backs and it's a safety net for candidates before they potentially get in trouble.
CS: If students see something that is not allowed, how do they report it?
KS: On [SGA Judicial Branch’s] Engage there’s a form called the Election Violations Form. You can go in there, submit any evidence that you have and that will be quickly reviewed by the EOC [Election Oversight Commission], especially since campaigning is really only a week long. The form is open now for early campaigning violations in case anyone has started campaigning, which includes things like word of mouth and putting up posters, things like that. Campaigning officially starts at 7:00 AM on Sunday. So if you see any violations, you're more than welcome to send them to us and we will review them and make decisions on whether or not the violations can be filed. Initially, in the past, the violations were a financial penalty; however, I saw a lot of inequity in that it wasn't fair that we were making students pay considerable amounts of money for different violations. The money at first comes from your campaign, but most people spend all of their campaign finances, so students are having to pay $200 a fine, which is not fair. Instead, it's now a vote penalty, and nobody wants to lose votes, so hopefully that enforces the rules a little bit better.
CS: Do you have anything else to add that you think students should know?
KS: Vote, pay attention, and follow SGA Instagram. This is a really great time for people that aren't engaged on campus to get engaged in campus culture and to help make their voice heard. Voting for senators that you align with and know that you have similar wants on campus as those senators is really important. This isn't like the real government where your senators are like these people that are wealthy and out of touch with your reality; these are your classmates and your peers, so I urge people to take it seriously, but also to remember that it's important to take care of yourself. It’s important for the candidates, especially, to know that and that the SGA website has a lot of mental health resources. All of the candidates know that we’re [Kate and I] a point of contact for them if they ever need anything.
More information on upcoming SGA elections and campaigning can be found on the ButlerSGA Instagram as well as the butlersga.org website.