Due to the lack of participation in last year’s presidential election, student government has many plans to increase student involvement for this year’s election.
A total of 67 students voted in last year’s election, as determined after the Torch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the SG presidential election results of 2013.
“We are partnering up with Greek Week to make the presidential debate, not mandatory, but strongly recommended for the Greeks to go to it during Greek Week and then they can vote while they are there,” Student Government Public Relations Specialist Carman Plank said.
On Jan. 14, student government discussed the election guidelines of 2014-15 at its first meeting of the semester. These guidelines are a part of the Mandate of Internal Assessment and remain tentative until voted on at the next meeting.
According to SG Director of Internal Assessment Kelsey Beson, the election is tentatively scheduled to take place from April 8-13, 2014. Laptops will be set up around campus to allow students the availability to vote. This is in attempt to expose the election, hoping a larger amount of students will participate and vote for the student government president.
“The [student government] public relations committee plans on having tables in the IRC a couple weeks before the election to get the word out,” Plank said. “We also plan to utilize social media a lot during that time and through word of mouth tell everyone to go vote and when the debate is going to be.”
As of publication, the presidential debate is scheduled for April 8, 2014.
Votes will be cast on OrgSync by Ferris students and majority vote will determine the winner. More than 10 years ago, the election was done through the Electoral College based on students’ specific college. This method violated FERPA because student names would have had to be verified to determine the college in which they were voting.
According to the election guidelines, students who have been active members of the general assembly of student government for at least two semesters directly prior to the date of inauguration are eligible to become a presidential candidate.