Three political parties have submitted a list of candidates for 50 available Senate seats in the upcoming Student Government elections.
Nearly 150 students were chosen out of the roughly 400 senator hopefuls who stopped by during three days of interviews.
The Unite Party was the only party to submit candidates for all 50 seats. The Progress Party and the Orange and Blue Party came in six and four seats short, respectively, of filling their entire ticket.
The Keg Party decided to drop out of the running for Senate seats, but will run on the executive ticket, said Frank Bracco, the party's president. Each party will hold a meeting this week to gain input from candidates about what issues should be the focus of the upcoming campaign season.
Unite Party President Will Harrell said the meeting will be used for team-building.
"We're all going to have to become good friends pretty soon," Harrell said.
Orange and Blue Party President Donte Hargrove said he was pleased with his party's overall ticket and student turnout.
"We had a lot of young students come out," he said, adding this surge of underclassmen may have stemmed from the recent presidential election, piquing students interest in politics.
The Progress Party's communications director Eric Conrad also spoke on the number of interested younger students.
"We had a good turnout of younger people and new ideas," he said, adding the party had many freshman and sophomore candidates.
The Progress Party also snagged former president of the LAN Party, Kevin Seymour, who joined Progress after a low turnout in interviews with his own party.
Conrad said a party meeting this week will prepare the candidates for the weeks ahead, "so they can avoid pitfalls and get into hard core campaigning."
Bracco, of the Keg Party, announced the party's candidates for SG's executive branch as presidential candidate Frank Walch and, candidates for vice president and treasurer, Russel Ward and Elizabeth Stinson.
Walch said there was little to no chance the Keg Party would win.
"Our main goal is to make a statement," he said.
