Tickets for the upcoming presidential and vice presidential elections were announced at Senate Wednesday night, kicking off the ASG campaign season.
Weinberg juniors Julia Watson and Erik Zorn will run against Weinberg juniors Alex Deitchman and Ronak Patel in the upcoming elections. Senate also unanimously voted for the new design of the online ballot.
Unlike last year's ballot that ranked candidates, the new changes mean students can only vote for one ticket. Senators will also consider excluding the “no confidence” option on the ballot. Candidates can now start campaigning and the vote will be on April 9.
After approving the redesign of the 2014 ASG Election Ballot, senate elected the positions of Speaker of the Senate and Parliamentarian in a short session Wednesday night.
Weinberg sophomore Noah Star defeated Bienen sophomore Harrison Flagler in a lengthy speaker election. Star will replace Weinberg junior Katie Funderburg at the next senate meeting.
“This is the first year in a while where we’ve had two very strong candidates,” said Alex Van Atta, McCormick senior and executive vice president.
Senators engaged in an extended debate and question period before voting for the position. Later, in the shorter parliamentarian election, Weinberg junior Petros Karahalios defeated Weinberg junior Dana Leinbach.
After elections, Senators introduced and voted on a resolution concerning the newly announced SafeRide policy to remove the option of driving students from off-campus to off-campus locations.
The resolution expressed that the university “failed to vet or clearly communicate the decision to limit SafeRide services with ASG and the student body.” The senate’s main concern was the fact that SafeRide didn’t replace the removed policy with another viable ride option.
According to members of the senate, SafeRide issued the policy primarily to reduce the wait time for rides and for liability reasons as well. After proposing to move the bill to Old Business, senate voted to pass the bill.
Senators also voted to pass six major changes to the ASG Code. Some changes referred to the senate attendance policies in addition to public forum reforms.