The Associated Students of Colorado State University ratified their elections committee in Senate Wednesday.
The committee will oversee the student government elections, which will be held April 6 – 8. There will be open placements for presidential, vice presidential and senator candidates.
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Any full-time (12 or more credits) CSU student who has a president/vice president ticket is eligible to run for president. Candidates must also attend an orientation session with the elections manager March 7 or March 10.
The elections committee will consist of Scott Rickets, Matt Lancto, Edward Kendall, Sam Laffey, Rachel Franz and Caroline Schmitz.
Elections manager Andrei Gurau, senior biomedical sciences major, said the committee will focus on marketing for elections, attempting to increase voter turnout from the 15 percent participation rate of 2014.
“We’re going to use some subtle promotions on campus,” Gurau said. “You’ll see those a week before spring break so that it will get people ready for elections in April. … It’s gonna build up to elections, and it’s gonna spring up on everybody.”
Elections committee member Ricketts, who has served on two elections committees and is a senior business major, said that he hopes to improve the locations of voting polls.
“Last year the library was the only place (to vote),” Ricketts said. “I want to open up more, like in the LSC and on-campus.”
The committee also suggested more interactive ways to improve voting.
“I was throwing around the idea of setting up kind of a raffle system,” Rickets said.
Committee member and senior economics major Franz also suggested using social media to attract student voters, as well as by using music and “goodies” to attract students on the Plaza.
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Laffey, election committee member and senior economics major, said he hopes to use the Collegian to increase student voting.
The members said that their past actions attest to their impartiality, which they said will continue in the upcoming elections.
“Impeachment — you all remember that, don’t you?” Laffey said. “But, yeah, we all had to be unbiased. I think every person here could vouch that I was unbiased.”
The election candidates have not yet been released.
Collegian Diversity Beat Reporter Hannah Ditzenberger can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter at @h_ditzenberger.
