Due to a clerical mix up, the Student Alliance party will not be participating in the upcoming Student Government elections.
According to Supervisor of Elections Amanda Griffin, the Student Alliance party did not file a slate list by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 7, the last day of slating interviews.
Yevgen Sautin, spokesman for the Student Alliance party, said his party accidentally submitted the wrong list to the supervisor, and by the time the mistake was caught, the deadline had already passed.
Sautin said some of the candidates who slated with the Student Alliance party decided to run independently after they were notified in an e-mail from the supervisor of elections that they were not eligible to run with the party.
“Those people got an e-mail and were basically turned away,” he said.
Neil Gundavda, an independent senator and leader of the Independent Coalition of Students, said the fact that the candidates were not allowed to run on a party ticket does not change their ideas to improve SG.
“It doesn’t really matter whether we have a party or not; we still have 24 candidates committed to running as independents,” Gundavda said. “At the end of the day, it’s all about trying to find a way for students to take back Student Government.”
Griffin said election codes do not require her to check the lists before the deadline and, because nothing like this has ever happened before, she did not think it was necessary to check the lists.
She said she will be recommending to the Senate that these codes be changed to prevent these situations in the future.
“Hopefully we can learn from this and develop the codes so this can never happen again, because it was unfortunate for everyone,” Griffin said.
Sautin said the Student Alliance party’s inability to participate in the elections will not have an impact on the party’s performance in the Student Senate.
