After a vote last week, students won’t be enduring a four-day voting period when student body elections open this spring.
A proposal to extend Student Government voting hours to 96 hours was voted down in last Wednesday’s Student Senate meeting.
Sen. Sam Daughtry, a lifelong education student and the sponsor of the bill, said he intended for the proposal to be amended to extend the voting period to 48 hours, but it was the Operations Committee that discussed it left the proposal as he originally wrote it at 96 hours. Daughtry said the committee has since admitted it was at fault for not correctly amending the proposal.
“By the time it got to the floor of the Senate, it was still reading 96,” Daughtry, who voted down the proposal, said.
Daughtry said after speaking to students, he felt the period needed to be elongated.
“People were missing the voting or forgetting the voting was taking place,” Daughtry said. “48 hours would kind of give a little more time and extension for students.”
Daughtry, who said he is resigning from the Senate, said there will be another submission of a similar proposal at an undisclosed date.
“Other senators have voiced to me in confidence and also on the Senate floor that they would like to reintroduce it at another time,” he said.
The voting period for student body elections was a two-day window until 2007 when a bill limited it to 24 hours along with setting limitations on campaigning and other regulations.
Student Senate President Kelli Rogers, who was a senator when the new procedure was approved, said students were annoyed by the lengthy process.
“When the voting days were 48 hours, candidates would be out there for all 48 hours and students would get asked multiple times if they had voted yet,” Rogers said, adding the change was in response to students. “At the time it was a reaction to students who wanted it to be 24 hours and were frustrated at the annoyance and the undue literature around campus.
Rogers said the same reasons that led to the hours being cut in 2007 were largely the reasons why the proposal wasn’t approved last week.
“The debate in Senate that was going back and forth was over the point that we changed it in response to students initially,” Rogers said. “There was hesitation to go back.”
Though the 96-hour proposal was shot down, Sen. Stephen Kouba, a senior in political science, said there may be more discussion over a 48-hour concept.
“If a two-day vote comes up I’m sure there will be more debate,” he said.
And, according to Rogers, the discussion will be welcome.
“It’s important that we make sure to fully discuss the issue and to review and ask students again, especially those who were here for the 48-hour voting, which one they prefer,” she said.
