Daysha Humphrey

Senior Writer

SGA elections have concluded for this semester, but the process did not go smoothly. Just a few days after SGA elections began, they were stopped.

The elections were postponed, and all votes that had been cast so far were dismissed.

According to Austin Rayford, a previous member of the SGA Constitution Committee and a candidate for senator of residence hall association, the problem was that people were running for offices that were, in some cases, no longer valid.

“The problem was simply that he position titles made available to candidates were not accurate,” Rayford said. “SGA operates according to our constitution. Therefore, in efforts to create a fair campaign, elections were re-done to abide by our current constitution.”

SGA also sent an email to all of the students about the issue. It stated that the candidates in the new election might be different from the original candidates, and that all of the results had been discarded, and students would have to re-cast their votes.

Shristi Dhakal, a candidate for senator-in-training, explained her thoughts about the issue.

“I don’t know much about the elections,” Dhakal said. “I’m a little disappointed that we have to do all the preparations again.”

Every year, SGA allows students several days to vote in the election. In addition, it provides students with a whole week of fun activities hosted by the SGA.

This year, SGA week was held Sept. 9-12. MUW students voted online through Blackboard.

However, because of the delay, the voting process re-opened on Blackboard at 8 a.m. on Sept. 16, and closed on Sept. 18 at noon.

A Medal of Honors ceremony was originally scheduled to be held on Sept. 12 at the gazebo, but was rescheduled for Sept. 18. At that event, the names of new senators were announced.

The new 2014-2015 SGA senators are as follows: Joy Damilola, senator of commuters; Amartize Bowen and Sadhana Thapa, senators of transfer students; Diana Diaz, senator of the College of Education and Human Sciences; Nilu Khadka, senator of the College of Business and Professional Studies; Jade Meeks and Aisha Ghimire, senators of the College of Arts and Sciences; Bria Murray, senator of the College of Nursing and Speech-Language Pathology; Devin Bingham, Lamon Stapleton, Chelsey Collins and Lisa Shrestha, freshman senators; Austin Rayford, resident hall association liaison.

“Ultimately, SGA strives to provide a clear and accurate election process to the entire campus body,” said Kimone Holtzman, coordinator of student engagement. “We would like to thank the MUW community for continued support of SGA and welcome aboard our new senators.”