Future Student Government Association elections may run a lot smoother thanks to SGA Legislative Director Andrew Longhofer.

Lonhofer presented his proposed amendments to bylaws and statutes pertaining to how elections are run for SGA last Wednesday. This Wednesday, SGA will have the chance to vote the amendments into the legislative journal, which holds the rules and regulations for SGA.

The amendments overhaul the previous laws and cover everything from how the election commission is allowed to sanction candidates to enforcing budget caps on campaigns.

“There are a lot of moving parts to this thing,” Longhofer said.

The election commission is the body in charge of ensuring election rules are followed and that a fair election takes place. Longhofer said that the current legislation leaves a lot of freedom for the election commission to make decisions.

Longhofer said that without specific guidelines for the commission, candidates are left with little protection from possibly excessive punishments.

The amendments allow the election commission to make recommendations for suspension or removal to the Supreme Court, allowing them to make the final decision.

“I think [the amendments give] the candidates a little more protection from the election commission,” Longhofer said. “And it gives the election commission the opportunity…to make good decisions because they don’t feel like they have to weigh the entire range of options.”

To further protect candidates from abuse of power, Longhofer amended the legislation to add a Wichita State faculty member to the election commission as a non-voting observer.

Longhofer said that this is to help ensure fairness by attempting to prevent the voting members of the commission from making decisions that are potentially “political” or “emotional.”

The amendments would also move the Student Advocate position from a voting participant to a non-voting observer of the commission. The treasurer will also remain a non-voting observer.

“This amendment expands the election commission pretty drastically,” Longhofer said.

Last year’s election saw many bumps in the road, one of which was due to scheduling mishaps for candidates meeting with the Chief Election Commissioner.

A proposed change to the statute provides that the Chief Election Commissioner must make a “good faith” effort to meet with candidates for mandated meetings to discuss the rules of elections.

“Under the existing election statute, there really is no expectation for how that gets done,” Longhofer said. “The onus (responsibility) of that work is effectively, under the current regulation, on the candidate.”

Longhofer said he feels that this is exclusionary and that at least some of the responsibility should be on the Chief Election Commissioner. However, Longhofer said he doesn’t expect the Commissioner to do everything “humanly possible.”

“I’m not expecting that,” Longhofer said. “I think a ‘good faith’ effort strikes the balance there.”

Another bump from last year’s elections is the election commission’s dependency on holdover senators. Holdover senators are primarily what make up the commission. However, only two of the five needed were appointed last year.

Longhofer said that he wants to separate the election commission from the holdover senators completely.

“Holdovers can only be people who want to serve again the next year and who are available to do that,” Longhofer said. “It’s really hard to find people that fit that ‘holdover senator’ description in certain years.”

As a solution, Longhofer said he wants to have election commission members chosen in the fall so that they can pull from a pool that would include members who can’t serve as a holdover senator the next fall.

Such members would include seniors graduating in the spring, members planning to study abroad in the spring and holdover senators.

The amendments also address campaign finance caps. $250 would be allowed for each president/vice president team and $100 would be allowed for each senate candidate.

Longhofer said this is to prevent candidates with significant personal funds from “buying the election.”

“I think it’s wrong for us to allow anybody on campus to be excluded on the basis of their personal resources,” Longhofer said.

Candidates would be required to submit an itemized budget to the election commission to ensure the funding caps are followed.