SGA moves forward with changes to election process

By Hannah Newman

Applications for Student Government Association positions were released Feb. 20. This year not every position will be on the ballot, but an interview process will take place, according to SGA President and senior political science major Christina Natoli.

A new bill was passed on Jan 30 that changes the election process. 

Student body president, executive vice president and vice president of administration and finances will stay on the ballot, while the other four open positions; vice president of communications, vice president of student affairs, vice president of university affairs and vice president of class connections; will go through an appointment-based process and interview, Natoli said.

“Historically we’ve just seen a big turn off to the election process. Specifically last year, besides having a completely uncontested election, we had two of our executive board positions completely vacant and no one ran for them,” said Natoli. “[The appointment-based process] was a system we had to employ after the election had ended where we did this interview process and we had so much more interest in that.”

In years prior, the bylaws stated all positions would run on the ballot and candidates could only run for one position. If a candidate does not secure the position they run for, they will not get a position for that year. However, this year, for anyone that runs on the ballot and does not get elected, there will be a deadline extension to encourage SGA leadership, according to Natoli. 

“What we learned from that [appointment-based process] was just that the election process may not be as appealing as it once was to people and that there is interest in SGA but for whatever reason the election isn’t catering to them,” said Natoli. “This year is an experimental year, we had a lot of success with the appointment-based process and the officers that we appointed have been great.”

Natoli said the current SGA executive board will ensure the screening process is taken more seriously to determine who is on the ballot so it’s “equitable to the positions being appointed.”

Last year, there were vacancies for vice president of communications and vice president of student affairs that were filled with the appointment-based process. 

Emma Cordero, senior biology major and vice president of student affairs, received her position through the appointment-based process as a result of vacant positions last year.

“[The appointment-based process] will encourage more people to participate because I wasn’t really planning on running for an executive position… like the election part I didn’t really want to do that initially,” said Cordero. 

Cordero believes there were already more applications than last year after changing the process to appointment-based. 

The general election will run on a different timeline than the appointment-based process. In the event the candidate does not pass the screening for one of those three positions, they will still have the opportunity to be considered for another, according to Natoli.

The election process will happen first and the screening interviews will run on a rolling basis. 

According to Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Nick Barbati, who graduated from Rider in 2007, SGA had a similar election process to that of the appointment-based process when he was a student. Barbati was appointed to a position and feels that if it were not for that opportunity, he may not have followed a career path in student affairs.

“This allows students that maybe are not successful in an election to still receive a great position and it also allows for students that maybe just don’t want to go through an election process to get involved,” said Barbati. “I’m one example of someone who would benefit from being able to be in the appointment-based process.”

The application deadline is March 14 and appointment interviews will run from Feb. 28 to March 28. The election period will take place from March 31 to April 16 and the extension to apply for remaining positions will be from April 17 to April 21.