In their meeting on March 10, the Student Government Association voted to allow SGA tech officer Reuben Dodge, computer science sophomore, to submit his election application packet late.

The election packet would allow Dodge to be a senator during the fall semester. Anyone applying to be a senator had to collect 72 signatures from students and get the packet in on time.

The deadline for packet submission was March 7.

According to the date on the packet, it erroneously states it is due on Friday, March 11, when it was actually due a few days before.

Dodge said he didn’t know the date on the packet was incorrect, so he submitted his packet on March 8, a day late.

The SGA election committee was asked to vote on whether Dodge should be allowed on the ballot.

The majority voted against allowing him on the ballot in next week’s elections.

SGA senator Josh Sesar, math and secondary education senior, said he thought this was unfair since the packet date was March 11.

SGA chair Jonathan Moody, psychology junior, was in favor of keeping Dodge off the ballot.

That would leave Dodge with the option to address the SGA body in the new term and ask to be voted in by senate majority.

“I approached advisers about the misprints and posted fliers,” Moody said. “Senator Dodge didn’t say he wasn’t unaware of the date changed and only said he got side-tracked.”

SGA pro-temp Matt Owen, political science sophomore, said he disagreed with keeping Dodge off the ballot.

“Even after the misprints were found, this packet was still handed out,” Owen said.

SGA senator Johann Pedolzky, political science and philosophy senior, raised a question.

“Wouldn’t we prefer to have a senator go on the ballot and have the student body vote on them … rather than us just governing ourselves?” Pedolzky said.

The point was brought up that it would be better to have more names on the ballot than less because students would know of more people in the SGA to go to when they had an issue they wanted to discuss.

In the end, a vote went through to overturn the election commission’s decision to keep Dodge off the ballot. Dodge will be on the voting ballot as a senator in this week’s elections.

The elections will begin at 4 a.m. on Monday, March 14, when the first e-mail will be sent out to IUS students. Voting will be open until the election ends  at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 17.

Josh Kornberg, communications junior, is running against Ethan Jones, geography and history senior.

By MICHELE HOP

Staff

mhop@ius.edu