The Nov. 19 Student Government Board elections might be marked by a historical lack in… The Nov. 19 Student Government Board elections might be marked by a historical lack in competition.

With eight candidates for eight board member positions going uncontested, it will be the first time in at least 30 years that the bare minimum of candidates ran for the board member positions, SGB adviser Joyce Giangarlo said.

Giangarlo said she remembers single-candidate presidential races in the past, but not since 1992, about the year when most freshmen were born.

Current board member Charlie Shull commented in an e-mail on his status as the lone presidential candidate.

“It is my belief that I am supported by my peers as a qualified and capable candidate who is going to draw from an eclectic group of resources in an effort to achieve successful representation on behalf of the Undergraduate Students at the University of Pittsburgh,” he said.

There are many theories about this year’s lack of election participation.

Board member Nila Devanath said usually about 14 students run for board, but that the number of candidates is subject to public view of the outgoing board and president.

“In my personal opinion, years where the board does really well and has a lot of good projects going on, a lot of people run. If there are problems with the board and if there’s a lot of drama, then they don’t — like when the panther statue scandal happened,” Devanath said.

The controversy to which Devanath referred occurred in 2007, during alumnus Shady Henien’s presidency. He and that year’s SGB garnered criticism for spending $60,000 on 10 6-foot tall panther statues, which different student organizations painted for homecoming.

Devanath said two candidates ran for president in the following election, as opposed to four candidates in the previous year.

She said she believes that although the current board positively affected Pitt, the stigmas surrounding its responses to the Super Bowl riot and G-20 aftermath cast a shadow on SGB.

All nine of the current candidates submitted their applications by Oct. 23, according to SGB elections committee chair Sarah Heisey.

SGB originally advertised an Oct. 21 application deadline in The Pitt News, but Heisey and the board members postponed the deadline to Oct. 27.

An additional 12 people picked up applications but had yet to turn them in as of last night, Heisey said.

“If they run, then we’ll probably be where we should,” Giangarlo said.

These applicants, along with any other non-College of General Studies students thinking about running, have until the late application date, this Wednesday, to apply.

Because the original deadline has passed, candidates for the board will need 400 signatures, and candidates for president will need 450, Heisey said. Previously, candidates needed half that many signatures.

“You have to get double the signatures, but it’s not hard to do on a campus of about 20,000,” former elections committee member Elaine Lewis, who will run for a position on the board, said.

From the candidates’ perspective, the current state of elections is a little bleak, she said.

Like Devanath, she said she thinks the low candidate registration is a sign of apathy within the student body.

Lewis said she decided to run for office when she realized few others were.

“I have a lot of passion for this University,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to see the student government system fail.”

Candidate Ali Noorbaksh said he thinks having a competitive election process is more important than having a guaranteed seat on SGB.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I hadn’t earned it,” Noorbaksh said, adding that she thought part of the reason few people were running for board was that a lot of students don’t understand what the board does.

The intensity of competition usually affects voter turnout, Giangarlo said.

“Student organizations across the board are having trouble filling these leadership positions,” Giangarlo said, adding that she thought many students had an “I don’t want to do it, I want to write about it, I want to complain about it” attitude.

Giangarlo said she has long suspected a widespread fear of press for students’ avoidance of leadership roles.

“For years, it was The Pitt News. People don’t want to be subject to that kind of scrutiny,” she said.

Former board member Ryan Very agreed.

“SGB members at Pitt sleep, eat, and breathe criticism,” he said in a letter to the editor. “This should be a good thing; it is important that students communicate with their elected representatives. But when columnists at the Pitt news accuse SGB of only being there to ‘pad their resumes’ or call their campaign slogans ‘meaningless rallying cries’ it discourages students from wanting to be involved with Student Government Board.”

Regardless of how many people run, SGB will hold its elections Nov. 19, the same date students can vote on an amendment to SGB’s constitution that would let the group’s president appoint students to the standing committees of the University Board of Trustees, University Senate Council and make any other appointments deemed necessary and/or requested by the University administration.