As the time for spring elections inches closer and students prepare to announce their intentions to run, a problem remains — only two members of the nine allotted are confirmed on the Elections Commission.

These commissioners are responsible regulating and validating the elections process.

There are nine total positions on the Elections Commission. Aside from the chair, four members serve from spring to fall and another four serve from fall to spring. According to Student Senate President Greg Doucette, the four commissioners that were supposed to serve from last year’s spring semester through this year’s fall semester resigned in the summer.

Although Student Body President Bobby Mills is only required to appoint four commissioners in the fall, because four resigned, he was supposed to appoint a total of eight commissioners and a chair.

“We should have nine commissioners the entire time,” Doucette said. “The four from the previous spring should have continued, but they didn’t want to continue. But Bobby should have elected four.”

Mills is required to appoint these commissioners and the Senate has to confirm them. Because of a new student-leader regulation that has placed requirements on an appointee’s GPA, full-time status and student conduct record, Student Government advisers must verify the appointee’s eligibility to serve after his or her Senate confirmation, according to Doucette.

But Mills did not appoint the remainder of the commissioners, stating he did not receive the support he needed from the Senate.

According to Adam Compton, a former senator and member of the appointment committee in the fall, Mills failed to prepare the appointees on what they were expected to do and that one of the three commissioners he appointed resigned when she learned about the time commitment.

The Senate confirmed the other two — Raleigh Davis and Jordan Jernigan, in addition to the chair who served last year, Brittany Prater.

Because Mills did not appoint the other two commissioners by the constitutional deadline, the responsibility was transferred to Doucette, who neglected to appoint them.

“I didn’t want to get stuck in the whole ‘we’re out to get Bobby Mills’ thing,” he said.

Doucette said Mills’ not appointing commissioners was one of the reasons some senators tried to censure him.

The responsibility to appoint two more commissioners then transferred to the Senate Pro Tempore Mike Alston.

During the spring semester, Mills is also required to appoint four new students to the commission and a new chair since Prater, who he appointed in the fall, resigned. He had until the first Friday of classes to do so.

Mills did not appoint them.

“I didn’t want to go through it again,” Mills said.

Therefore, once again, the responsibility was transferred to Doucette, who said he appointed a chair, but not commissioners.

According to Doucette, if he does not appoint commissioners by Feb. 7, the responsibility will go to Alston as it did last semester.

Prater said the situation is much like it was last year, when the commission still had vacant spots until a few days before the books opened for filing.

“With just two commissioners, it could affect elections,” she said. “Fall elections are a lot less strenuous than the spring.”

Doucette said the Elections Commission can have a minimum of five commissioners and if two weeks before elections, the pro tempore has not appointed the remainder of the members, the chair of the commission has the authority to do so.

Although this has been a issue in recent years, Compton said it is a major problem.

“It’s a shame that we’re already this late in the game and don’t have an Elections Commission to be wrapping up in the final stages of confirmation,” he said. “There’s definitely a learning curve … It’s more of an effect on the Elections Commission itself.”

This version corrects that Sen. Mike Alston is now responsible for appointing two senators, not four.