Tonight at 8 p.m., voting for your next group of elected student leaders will begin, and I sincerely hope that you all will take the initiative to exercise this right. Voting for your student leaders should be important to you because of the student fees in which they are entrusted to appropriate and spend. Next year, you will all give upwards of $14 in Student Government fees, and those who you elect will be in charge of allocating this money back to you. If you vote tonight, you will have had your say in who is most qualified to do this. If you don’t, you will have missed your only opportunity to do so; however, you will still pay your fees in August. 

Over the past few years, student leaders have been discouraged from endorsing candidates on the grounds that it provides for an unfair election. To those discouragers I ask this: Who knows better the needs of the office than those who are in it currently? I echo this sentiment to you all with this letter. No one can better endorse candidates for the executive offices of Student Government’s tomorrow than those who serve today. Furthermore, as your Student Body Vice President, I feel it is my duty to share with you my opinion on the future of Student Government, as you elected me to do my best for the organization, and part of the job is to ensure a sound future for this government body that does so much for the university.  

I will no doubt receive backlash for writing the following endorsement; however, I am my own man, and I am following my heart with these words, and I believe that my endorsement is a completion of my job to you as an elected official. If I go down in the books as a malevolent Vice President for endorsing two wonderful candidates, then so be it, as I am slated to be the worst Vice President in NC State’s history already (And the best. It is incredible how being first works).

With all this being said, I hereby formally endorse Gavin Harrison for Student Body President and Meredith Mason for Student Body Vice President. I feel these two are a union of experience and innovation. I feel they have the expertise it will take to weed out what Student Government is doing wrong and fix it, but at the same time, they will realize what Student Government is doing right and ensure continuation. Please take this endorsement with you to the polls tonight, and know that I have so endorsed only to fulfill what I feel is my obligation to you, the citizenry. I hold in my heart this university, and I pray you all do the same by voting tonight.

With dutiful humility I conclude,

Devan F. Riley, Student Body Vice President