Voting opens for student body elections

 

Voting will begin today for the student body general elections.

“It’s a great way for people to voice your concerns,” Sayf Hassouneh, SG supervisor of elections, said. “These elections are a means to achieve the goals you want at the university.”

As of 8 a.m. today, students can vote for the next student body president, the design for the new Our Shirt, senators to represent their college in the SG Senate and a referendum to renew the $1 per credit hour green energy fee.

Though voting can be done anytime online until Thursday at 8 p.m., Gary Manka, director for SG Advising, Training and Operations, said SG representatives will have polling locations around campus throughout the week.

In an email to The Oracle, Manka said the polling locations will include tents in front of the Marshall Student Center (MSC) and Cooper Hall 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day of voting.

Hassouneh said free T-shirts will be given to students who vote while supplies last, and additional polling locations will be in front of the Juniper-Poplar residence hall Tuesday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., outside the Library on Tuesday morning and outside the USF Campus Recreation Center on Thursday.

The voting link can be found advertised on Canvas this week, through sg.usf.edu/vote and on Student Government’s Facebook and Twitter.

Candidates running for student body president are Brandi Arnold, executive director of the Campus Traditions Board for the Center for Student Involvement and a junior majoring in business management and communications; Jean Cocco, chair of the SG University, Community and Government Affairs committee and a senior majoring in political science and international studies; and Danish Hasan, a staff writer for The Oracle and a freshman majoring in biomedical science.

The referendum on the ballot for the Our Shirt design has two choices: one with the text “Follow our hoofprints” on the front and “Or eat out dust” on the back, the other reading “This is Bulls Country” and “We Bleed Green & Gold.”

The other referendum is to renew the green energy fee, which was first created in 2011 and has to be renewed every three years.

Senate candidates are 57 members from the College of Arts and Sciences, 15 from the College of Business, three from the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, 13 from the College of Engineering, four from the College of Public Health and one each from the College of Medicine, College of Nursing and the College of The Arts.

Results are scheduled to be announced Friday at the MSC Ampitheater, and if no candidate for student body president receives more than 50 percent, a run-off election between the candidates with the two highest votes will take place March 4.