Belmont’s Student Government Association passed the Spring 2016 Elections Policies and Procedures, which outlines dates and regulations for presidential and vice presidential campaigning and elections in its meeting on Monday.
Applications will go live Wednesday at 10 a.m. These applications can be turned in to the Election Commissioner Alex Marsh or to SGA’s adviser Jessica Dykes from Feb. 22 at 8 a.m. to Feb. 26 at 4 p.m., and campaigners must have 150 signatures to run, according to the legislation.
Elections will run from March 21 to April 1.
Any student can sponsor a ticket except the current SGA executive cabinet and Belmont-chartered student organizations including, but not limited to, the following: Greek fraternities and sororities, campus academic departments, faculty or athletic teams.
Freshman congresswoman Tally Bevis said congress should evaluate which chartered organizations can sponsor tickets, since Belmont will charter the member organizations of HOPE Council in the following year.
But Belmont has different levels of categorizing its organizations including chartered, affiliated with university, non-affiliated and Greek organizations, said Secretary Erica Rivero.
“Greek is considered its own affiliation as an organization to the university because of paid membership and exclusivity,” she said. “That’s something that, in HOPE Council or as a member of HSA, I can’t make someone pay to come to our meetings and not allow someone else to come to our meetings.”
Because HOPE Council’s affiliation with the school is different than Greek life’s, it would not be unconstitutional to make an exception for HOPE Council in the regulations, Rivero said.
Congress passed the rules with the amended section concerning HOPE Council which states, “Rules concerning endorsements do not apply to member organizations of HOPE Council.”
SGA’s next meeting will take place on Feb. 29.
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