No write-ins in election, candidates can still declare

As of Tuesday’s Student Government Board meeting, four presidential candidates and 14… As of Tuesday’s Student Government Board meeting, four presidential candidates and 14 board-member candidates were approved to run in the November elections.

However, elections chair Greg Heller-LaBelle said that more candidates have turned in packets and are awaiting certification.

Though the deadline to declare candidacy has passed, the ticket is by no means final.

A clause added in the newly revised elections code allows for candidates to declare late candidacy up until one week before the elections.

The clause was created to compensate for the loss of the write-in option that traditional polling provided. This year’s elections will be held online without write-ins.

In order to declare late candidacy, students must submit a letter of intent to the elections committee and collect 500 signatures to run for president and 400 signatures to run for board, twice as many signatures as the candidates who met the original deadline needed.

A few slates are still waiting for candidate approvals.

Presidential candidate and board member Joe Pasqualichio is waiting for the third member of his slate, called Driven, to be confirmed. Shady Henien has already been approved to run on Driven.

“My slate members have a lot of great ideas,” Pasqualichio said. “SGB has made a lot of changes in the last two years. I just want see through what we’ve began.”

“I’m looking forward to a lot of people voting this year. The more people that vote, the better chance that the best candidate will win, and that candidate is me.”

Presidential candidate Joe Salvatore has chosen to run without a slate.

“I just thought that with the way the campaign was working for a while, it would be more beneficial for me to run independently so that I could be unassociated with all the politics that were going on,” Salvatore said. “I think that I can run a more efficient campaign this way.”

Board member Zach Ransom, who is running for president, previously announced a coalition with former presidential candidate K. Chase Patterson. Since their announcement two weeks ago, Patterson has decided to leave the race completely.

“Chase decided that it would be in his best interest to graduate and go to law school,” Ransom said. “I completely support him.”

Patterson said the decision was hard.

“I want to graduate, and I struggled with each decision. There were some internal struggles within the group the day before the slates were due, and I decided that it would be best not to run,” Patterson said. “I would have liked to make history, but in four years I think I’ve left a pretty good legacy.”

Ransom will instead run on the Proven slate with current board member Jennifer Anukem and allocations committee member Joe Leinbach.

Presidential candidate Joe Gookin could not be reached for comment.

Other slates include Break the Mold (Sara Fatel, Jason Pippi and Erica Lillquist), Open Minds (Sheila Isong, Ethan Kate and Jimmy Gill), Resolution (Will Powers and Aimee Kleer) and Traditions (John Helter and Craig Dolson).

Diedra Dunhoff is not currently affiliated with a slate.

Heller-LaBelle said that the number of slates could change because of late candidacy.

“In the code there is nothing that says you can’t, but we do have deadlines,” he said. “I think declaring late candidacy and winning is going to be difficult. It’s not a free ride.”