SGA Elections This Week

BY WILL LYNCH

The candidates for the upcoming Student Government Association elections were announced yesterday, earlier than usual as a way to allow new members a longer and smoother transition period into their positions.

The new cabinet members will begin the transition process in the beginning of March. The inaugurations will be the first weekend of April.

The incoming Executive Cabinet members will have two months before the end of school as well as the summer to prepare before their term starts.

“The extended transition time period will allow the SGA officials to get more accomplished so they won’t have to play catch up,” Abdelhalim said.

The elections, that will be run by the Election Rules and Procedure Committee, are for the nine Executive Cabinet positions of the UMW SGA. Voting will begin via e-mail ballots next Tuesday and the voting period will last through the following day.

“I am excited for the upcoming election cycle” current SGA Vice President Hassan Abdelhalim said. “We’ve done a lot of work to make sure the new officials have a smooth transition period. They will have two full months after being elected to work with the current officers to help them learn the responsibilities of their positions.”

However not all students are excited for the election.

“I think [the elections] are set up unfairly,” sophomore Nick Desarno said.

“The people who usually win just want to keep the status quo, the students of this university deserve to have fair minded representatives, and they need to take more accountability,” DeSarno said.

Sophomore Rachel Sowers, who came to UMW as a transfer from Lynchburg College, said, “Honestly I don’t know anything about the SGA. I don’t really know what they do. I think they should do more to become visible to the students.”

This election cycle also brings an updated version of the Election Rules and Procedure Committee handbook with new campaign regulations. The Student Senate recently passed the new rules and regulations for the upcoming elections.

After Spring break, the rest of the cabinet officials and positions for various committees will be filled, according to the SGA Constitution.

Information on the SGA candidates is available online at the SGA Facebook group, and will also be provided in the e-mail ballots that will be sent out to the student voters next week.

For a complete list of candidates, see this week’s print edition of the Bullet.