Wichita State’s Student Senate temporarily suspended their usual processes at a meeting last week to pass a bill amending election proceedings. It made several updates to the Senate’s bylaws regarding elections.
Victoria Owens, the speaker of the senate, said a senator had noticed inconsistencies between the Senate’s bylaws and constitution which needed to be addressed urgently.
“That meant we may not be able to allow for a fall election process like we had planned last session, and as was passed in (the) government oversight (committee),” she said.
The Senate then brought the issue to SGA’s Supreme Court, which returned an opinion agreeing that the bylaws needed to be changed in order to proceed with the next election cycle.
The Senate moved to suspend the rules before reading the bill, meaning that rather than taking the usual two weeks for it to go to committee and then come before the Senate again, they were able to read the bill for the first time and vote on it the same night.
The bill, written by Sen. Andrew Bobbitt, included the addition of an annual midterm election and an in-person polling location for the general election.
“During office hours, we’re required to staff a table where people can come, and they will help them through the process of voting. They will make voting accessible and hopefully encourage a couple more of our students to actually vote,” Bobbitt said.
This follows a dramatic decrease in the number of student voters during last year’s Senate elections.
Many of the bill’s other changes were altered or removed wording. This included removing references to at-large senators, a position that was removed in February.
Some of the changes that were made to SGA election rules are listed below.
The bill amending elections proceedings can be viewed at tinyurl.com/53wmnd8r.
