By Matt Morriscontributing Writer
Student Government Association elections are wrapping up today, as students have their last opportunity to make it to the polls to place their votes.
The campaigns have been going on since March 4th, and have allowed candidates an opportunity to get their names and ideas out to U of L students.
One group, the NAACP, recently held an event to help educate U of L students on where candidates stand on the issues and encourage them to get out and vote.
The Red Barn event featured U of L NAACP Chapter president James Sye as moderator, who would ask questions to each of the SGA Presidential candidates. The candidate would then have two minutes to reply.
The topics discussed ranged from race relations on campus to the housing situation for upperclassmen.
There was also a time allotted for a question and answer session, which gave students an opportunity to ask questions of specific candidates or the entire panel.
The SGA Supreme Court also sponsored a debate earlier in the week with a similar format.
The SGA Supreme Court has established a list of strict rules that each candidate, for any SGA office, must adhere to throughout their campaign.
These rules include a budget limit, a strict prohibition on the use of sidewalk chalk and specified areas in which campaigning can take place during the designated voting times. A full list of rules can be seen at http://www.louisville.edu/sga/court/elections/elec02/index.html.
Anyone on campus is allowed to report a violation. Today, after elections are over all, campaign violations will be heard by the Supreme Court, who will then have a variety of options to punish candidates. Punishment can range from a public censure to a deduction of a percentage of votes received by a candidate.
For candidates to win their office, they must receive not only a majority of student votes, but they must also receive 40% of all votes cast. This means that if no candidate receives 40% of the votes, then there will be a run-off between the top two candidates. The date of such a run-off would be announced after all votes have been counted.
Each candidate has used different tactics to get votes, but some people feel this year has had less enthusiasm on the part of candidates.
One candidate for SGA president noted, “I am disturbed at the lack of effort on the part of many candidates to reach out and speak to groups on this campus that are not traditionally campaigned to.”
The candidate also pointed out that the effectiveness of each campaign will be seen after the elections are over.
The candidate continued, “As far as my campaign, I have struggled to keep a clean race as my point of focus. No matter what, do not let them get the best of you. Our key to success up to this point: extensive planning and thorough implementation of our objectives. However, we will see how well it turned out come Wednesday.”
