Last year, five candidates ran for Associated Student Government executive offices. This year, five candidates are running for the office of president alone.
Ten students are running for the four elected positions on ASG’s executive board this year. Only one of the four positions, the executive vice president position, is uncontested.
Only two of the five presidential candidates have ASG experience, and none of the candidates have served on the executive board.
ASG Elections Commissioner Samir Pendse said he didn’t understand what led to so many applications but is excited by the high turnout.
“I’m not sure what it says (about) as ASG as a whole but I think it’s exciting,” he said. “I think, in any organization, if you have the same voices then after a while it can get stale.”
The candidates cited their lack of ASG experience in interviews as either a non-issue or an asset.
Weinberg junior Blake Yocom characterized the organization as out-of-touch and excessively focused on internal issues and resolutions on issues like the Iraq War and Jena 6.
“I have zero ASG experience, which I feel qualifies me more to be president of ASG more than anything else,” the Weinberg junior said. “For anybody to claim experience with ASG would mean them standing behind the record of ASG for however long they’ve been a part of it.”
But some experience is necessary to even know what would be necessary to fix, said Neal Sales-Griffin, a one-term ASG senator.
“It’s very important to understand the inner workings of an organization before jumping head first into it,” the SESP junior said. “It is irresponsible to enter an organization without having learned its current status and how it is functioning.”
The other presidential candidates are Weinberg sophomore Luke Adams, Weinberg junior Scott Burton and Weinberg junior Mark Crain.
Hariharan Vijay, a candidate for student services vice president, said his experience outside ASG gave him a greater insight into what ordinary students want.
But his outsider status has already given him problems. The Weinberg junior’s entry into the race was filed 10 minutes past deadline on Friday.
“I didn’t even know that the petition deadline was due on Friday, ” Vijay said. “I realized it was due at noon on Friday, researched the position I wanted to run for by 2 p.m. , collected the signatures between 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. and turned it in immediately.”
The decision to include Vijay on the ballot was made because it did not interfere in running the election, Pendse said.
“He was only 10 minutes late, he did not miss the (ASG candidates’) forum, he did not miss finalizing the ballot,” Pendse said. “If he had been even an hour late, he wouldn’t have been able to run.”
If Vijay had not been able to run, the race for vice president of student services would have gone uncontested, Pendse said.
“Having two candidates is much better than having one candidate,” he said. “It makes both candidates better and gives the students a better opportunity.”
Vijay will face McCormick junior Nate Perkins for SSVP. For academic vice president, Weinberg junior Usman Mian will compete against Communication sophomore Michael McGee.
