Possible return to paper ballots if issues persist
The University of Rhode Island’s Student Senate elections have been postponed indefinitely, but Senate members are hopeful that this will lead to positives in the long term.
In the past few elections, students have been able to vote online for the election through Campus Labs. The Senate moved the process online to make voting easier and more accessible for all students than voting with paper ballots in the Memorial Union.
The new software requires a coordinator to run the system, and the current coordinator is unable to help indefinitely for undisclosed reasons. According to Leila Cox, the director of communications, no one else knows how to run the system correctly and due to that, the elections were pushed.
Elections Committee chair Chris Bove said that the Senate is looking to hold elections within the first few weeks of November. If Campus Labs is still unavailable at that time, elections will be held in person with ballots.
Although the elections have been postponed indefinitely right now, some Senate members see this as a good opportunity to recruit new senators.
“We have received an increased amount of declarations since we announced the postponement, so people are definitely taking advantage of the time,” Bove said.
Any undergraduate student at URI can still declare to run for a Senate position by going to the Student Senate office. If a student was unsure and didn’t declare in time for the original date, they are highly encouraged to run. After a student declares to run, they can campaign to their fellow students around campus prior to the election, according to Cox.
A variety of positions are open, including freshman representatives, on-campus and off-campus representatives and at-large representatives. Each college at URI also has a student representative in the Senate.
Bove and Cox both stressed the need for a diversity of majors, interests and backgrounds in the Senate and said all students are wanted in the Senate.
“The Senate wouldn’t be an accurate representation of students if it was all just political science students,” Bove said.
The elections are promoted through social media, word of mouth, signs and the Student Senate website. Senate elections have been more heavily advertised than ever before, according to Cox, which has also brought much more attention to the Senate.
“This semester a part of our leadership team went to the URI 101 classes and told them about the Senate and the open seats available,” Cox said.
Cox hopes that by immediately making the freshmen aware of Student Senate, more freshmen will have interest in it and join earlier.
Bove said that he wants students to know that this is not a normal semester for the Senate.
“I don’t want students to judge the Senate just by how elections have gone this year,” Bove said. “This is our first semester back in person, and we’re figuring out the kinks.”