By Libby NelsonThe Daily Northwestern
Next week’s Associated Student Government elections will feature something new.
A paper trail.
By moving the voting online, senators will be able to keep an accurate record in case of controversy. The election changes are part of a broader push to make ASG elections more accurate and hold the group more accountable.
“(These elections are) going to be a lot more fair, and the outcome will be better than any we’ve ever seen,” said ASG President Jay Schumacher, a Communication senior.
When new residence hall senators are elected Sept. 28, voting will take place online via a system of primary elections. Each residence hall will vote for its candidates. For larger dorms like Allison, the elected candidate becomes the senator.
Smaller dorms will be grouped together into districts. The Residence Hall Association then will interview winning candidates from all dorms within a district to choose a district senator.
“I think (the new elections) will be a positive change in terms of accountability,” Speaker of the Senate Jonathan Webber, a SESP junior, said. “In the past, there weren’t good elections for senators and (ASG) was unhappy with the appointing process.”
The new election process was designed in a meeting last year between Residence Hall Association President Kendall Drew, a McCormick sophomore; RHA Vice President and former ASG senator Sebastian Rodriguez, a Weinberg sophomore; Schumacher and Webber.
“It became clear when we four sat down together that we were going to have to redo everything,” Drew said.
Last year, RHA had much more freedom when it came to its choice of senators, who were simply appointed by RHA’s executive board. This sometimes led to a mismatch of senators and constituents that had the potential to underrepresent smaller or larger dorms, Drew said. The district system was created to combat that.
For districts made up of more than one dorm, RHA will have to change their constitution to decide on an electing procedure, Drew said. She said she planned to mimic the Residential College Board’s system of having candidates fill out a questionnaire and then holding a question-and-answer session with executive board members.
The runners-up in the executive board selection process could serve as alternates if necessary.
“Hopefully we won’t have to redo everything next year again,” Drew said. “ASG has a lot of power. RHA has 10 seats and we represent so many people.”
The new transparency made possible by ASG’s new use of Internet resources will benefit NU students in other ways, as well. Senators’ votes on ASG legislation will also be distributed online and to campus media so that student groups, residence halls and other constituents can better see and understand how their senators represent them in student government.
Reach Libby Nelson at [email protected].
