Amendment, elections deliberated at senate meeting

An amendment to the constitution and details for student elections were discussed at senate this week.

Jacob Karmazin, president, proposed an amendment to the constitution regarding when petitions should be accepted for positions on the Senate.  Karmazin said that since the senate represents the student body as a whole, the student body should elect members.  The major concern with petitions being accepted now is that Karmazin felt petitions were a loophole to cheat the system by avoiding elections and petitioning directly to the senate.  It was discussed to change the election dates from November and March to September and February and not accept petitions prior to elections each semester.

An agreement couldn’t be reached about what the best option was for petitioning so the discussion was tabled until next week.

Rebecca Kathman, secretary, proposed that in order to prevent paper waste the Senate minutes should no longer be printed for the meetings.  Fifty copies are printed for each meeting and in an effort to go green; Kathman proposed that the minutes be e-mailed to the senators.  The minutes will be sent to senators no later than 8 a.m. Sunday mornings and three printed copies of the minutes will be at the meeting for reference.   The proposal was quickly approved by the senate.

Laure Sinn, coordinator of student activities, said she was very excited for the upcoming elections senate elections.  As a result of the school’s better voting turnouts when there are face-to-face elections rather than online elections, there will be voting booths put up for the elections.  People who work with the national elections have also volunteered to help with our elections.

No more than $100 was allocated from the state account for scantrons to be used in the upcoming senate elections.