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Volume CXVIII, No. XXII |
December 8, 2005 |
Senators elected to new positions
Six students take positions in the St. John's Senate after last week's special election. The vice president and president were also elected
The Record
The makeup of the St. John's Senate has undergone several changes in the last week.
The SJS held a special election last Friday.
The special election took place because four senators resigned after the senate passed a resolution that extended their terms by one semester.
Nick Truso, Michael Thomas and Joseph Daly were elected to the Allocations Board.
Jeff Jackson was elected to the Judicial Board.
Students also voted to pass a referendum creating a vice president position.
Kevin May was elected as president by the senate in a closed session and Mark Osbourne was elected to the vice president position.
As a result, two more candidates, Barry Griffin and Thomas Kellogg, won SJS senator positions on the judicial and allocations boards, respectively.
A total of 421 students voted, about 22 percent of the St. John's student population.
According to the SJS, this is the best participation for a special election they have ever had.
Raj Chaphalkar, the SJS public relations officer, cites the number of candidates and the new online voting feature as reasons for the election's success.
"I think that part of it was that there were six candidates for four spots [for the AAB], and part of it could have been the online voting," Chaphalkar said. "Students could vote on their own computers."
For the Judicial Board, six candidates ran for two open spots.
Another reason for the increased participation may have been that students were better informed for this election than others.
"The online voting option made [voting] a lot easier than during the last special election," said first-year William Purdy. "I also knew more about the candidates' platforms through The Record and more active campaigning."
Chaphalkar hopes that student participation in the elections will increase further.
"One of the big issues is getting the word out about the elections as early as possible," Chaphalkar said. "We are also working on making online voting easier for the general elections."
