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SG voter turnout up 12%
By Alex Reyes
Contributing Reporter

Voter turnout increased by almost 12.5 percent this year in Student Government elections held Sept. 10 to determine Honor and Ethics Council positions and student legislators.

Freshmen Rachel Maree and Matthew Newell gained spots on the HEC and 42 new legislators were elected to represent the student body.

Maree, who worked on her high school’s honor council is looking forward to her tenure on HEC. "I plan to represent the class of 2006 to the best of my ability," she said. "Its something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I got here." Maree added that the university’s strong honor code was part of the reason she chose to enroll.

In addition to the HEC and legislative positions, students also voted for two referenda. Both passed, resulting in an additional responsibility of the Appropriations and Charter Committee that requires them to periodically evaluate all chartered organizations. The other referendum eliminated

several unnecessary subsections of the Student Constitution.

The Constitution previously had several subsections (J through N in Article 1, Section 5) regarding the rights of an accused student. The subsections said that a resident adviser had to identify him/herself as an RA and remind the student that they are bound by the Honor Code.

All judicial matters must be dealt with by the judicial council, but these subsections were never recognized by the council.

SG thought the best way to resolve the issue was to make it a public one.

Last year, the legislature voted unanimously to take out the sections. In this election, the vast majority of students agreed with the legislature, so the subsections have been removed.

"Many students think that by taking these sections out, some of their rights are being eliminated," senior Jonathan Willingham, SG secretary, said.

"The eliminated sections were repetitious of previous clauses, except that the last subsection ended by saying that the ‘above rights’ won’t necessarily exempt students from charges," Willingham said.

The executive board was pleased with this year’s voter turnout — 29.45 percent of students voted, up from last year’s 16.98 percent. Ramsey attributes this increase to mass emails sent on election day and a "great PR team."

Each legislator represents approximately 50 students in their dorm.

To be in the election, each candidate was required to get 30 signatures from students in their respective dorms.

"I think that we are all very pleased with the way that the campaigning week went," senior Ryan Ramsey, SG president, said. "The races were tight in some South campus dorms, and we have seen more interest than usual from the Quad dorms and off-campus."

The legislature candidates included those who had served on SG last year, several new upperclassmen and freshmen.

"I was a legislator last year," junior Angela Watkins said. "And one of my goals for this year is to serve on the academic committee and make RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) classes mandatory for all females."