General elections on the horizon

With a shorter campaign season and a smaller senate, the Northern Iowa Student Government general elections look to be leaner and meaner than ever before.

Candidates will only have two weeks of official campaigning before University of Northern Iowa students vote for presidential and senate candidates Feb. 27-28 on MyUNIverse, and with senate shrinking from 38 seats to 19, many NISG members are expecting more contested elections.

"It's gonna be fast and hard," said Spencer Walrath, student body president. "It's gonna be a lot shorter than we're used to, which will mean that (candidates) need to maximize (their) time."

Speaker of the Senate Ryan Alfred hopes that contested elections will require candidates to reach out more to their constituents.

"Senators are actually gonna have to be accountable for what they do in office," he said.

Next year's senate will be organized by colleges alone, doing away with representatives based on residence and senators at-large thanks to a bill passed by last year's senate after several senators were elected with fewer than 20 write-in votes. Each college will get one senate seat, with an additional seat for every 750 students in that college. Interdisciplinary and deciding students will also have their own representatives, and graduate students will be represented in the Graduate College, not in their area of focus.

Alfred thinks the restructuring could result in the most diverse senate UNI has ever had.

"If you look right now, it's made up of a lot of the same people within the same majors, within the same constituencies," he said. "Right now there's not a lot of on-campus students, there's not a lot of majors within the College of Education — there is actually not a single major within the College of Education within our senate right now," noting that a social sciences teaching major currently represents the college.

Fewer seats could also be the remedy for a senate that has never once had every position filled this year and is currently running six seats short of capacity, with several constituencies unrepresented.

The restructuring also means a drastic reduction in the number of ballots for the election commission to count, which could prevent counting mistakes like the transposition error made by last year's commission, which resulted in an unnecessary runoff campaign until it was later discovered and corrected.

"I've been on the election commission when we've had  more than 80 ballots to count; there's a lot of paper flying everywhere," Election Commissioner Jill Hohnecker said. "So this year, with less than 10 ballots, we will be able to see everything at once and have those numbers."

The senate revised the election rules this year to reduce the campaign season by one week in response to feedback from students and former candidates, with many complaining it was "too drawn out," Hohnecker said.

"There was kind of a lull in the middle (last year) where no one really knew what to do because they just had too much time," she said. "So we shortened it hoping we can really be hitting the ground running and really have time to get everything done."

Advice for potential candidates

With the possibility of contested races and greater accountability, Walrath finds it more important than ever for would-be senators and presidential candidates to prepare to be active in the body and to run for the right reasons.

"Everyone who's preparing to run should have students' interest at the forefront of their mind," he said. "It shouldn't be any sort of attempt to grab power or influence; it needs to be out of a desire to serve and represent your fellow students."

Walrath advised candidates to prepare their campaigns as early as possible and to plan on meeting with students and organizations on campus.

"You need to be prepared to do more than just a Facebook group," he said. "… Have a platform ready to go. I think that it's gonna be important that you come ready with some goals in hand for what you want to accomplish."

Potential candidates can find information about how to run and guides to campaigning and campaign finances on the NISG elections website, www.uni.edu/nisg/elections.

"It's not a scary process at all," Hohnecker said. "There are so many people who want people to get involved who are willing to help you."