(HELENA BOLOGNA/The Daily Campus)
Campaign season for Student Senate candidates began Sunday night after the mandatory candidates meeting.
Student Senate General Elections will take place March 30-31 at smu.edu/elections.
Potential senators and student body officers met at the Service House to go over the Election Code and take ballot photos. They also drew for their places on the ballot.
Membership Chair Katherine Ladner went over campaign rules, but told candidates to read the Election Code on Senate’s website, saying she wasn’t going to spoon-feed them.
One of the things Ladner discussed was a recently passed rule that candidates can’t campaign within 25 feet of a person in the process of voting. Ladner admitted that she couldn’t “really monitor” the rule, but she told candidates to be respectful and to not hover over voters.
“Just kind of back off and let them vote,” she said. “If they want to vote for you, they’ll vote for you.”
Above all, Ladner said, “please be nice.”
“Do not pick up people’s signs, break down their stuff,” she said. “Don’t sabotage other people’s campaigns, because one: it’s just rude and two: you just look intimidated.”
Once the meeting ended, candidates were free to start putting up stake signs and create Facebook groups. Current Dedman II Senator and Student Body Vice President candidate Alex Ehmke said that the hardest part of the campaign season is the time limit.
“You only have 10 days to try to talk to as many students as possible,” he said. “So you meet with as many organizations as possible and try to get your message out there, but it’s always a challenge because meeting everybody is impossible.”
Current Student Body Vice President and Student Body President candidate Austin Prentice agreed with Ehmke and added the challenge of getting graduate students interested.
“That represents more than half the student body,” he said. “So it’s getting them to turnout and be represented and let their voice be heard in the election.”
Dedman II candidate Hanna Kim interviewed for a Senate seat last semester, but didn’t get it. Kim is running because she’s in love with the political science department.
“I just really love working with students and my goal ultimately is to bring students closer to their department, because I’m in love with my political science department,” she said.
Cox Senator candidate Jaison Thomas said the campaign season was going to be tough, because “all the possible candidates are really good candidates.”
Current First-Year Senator and Cox Senator candidate Jaywin Malhi agreed.
“It’s really good for Cox that we have so many really good candidates running,” he said. “I mean, in the end, regardless of what the result is, we’re going to have some nice representation in Cox.”
