Why should you care about the USUSA elections?

By Cait Keith LIFESTYLES STAFF REPORTER

Feb. 22 is the start of elections for Utah State University Student Association officers.

The Executive Leadership Board, which includes the USUSA president, executive VP and student advocate VP, is up for election, as are positions on the Logan Campus Executive Council, including the Logan VP and executive directors for athletics & campus recreation, diversity & organizations and student events.

Along with executive positions, the ballot will include statewide positions for college senators and VPs for the Blanding, Brigham City, Eastern, Moab, Southwest, Tooele, Uintah Basin and Wasatch regions.

The current president of USUSA, Clara Alder, said the students who hold these positions represent the needs of the whole of USU’s student body and the senators represent the needs of the students in their college.

“You want to be involved because these are some key stakeholders to many opportunities for improvement and change,” Alder said.

The elected students oversee tuition and student fees, and they advocate for the best interest of students.

USUSA public relations assistant Janeal Rydalch, who is serving on this year’s elections committee, said those elected make big decisions that impact students.

“It’s similar to student council or student government in high school, and everybody coming from high school would probably be able to understand that,” Rydalch said. “And maybe it didn’t matter to them in high school, but in college, I feel it’s a little more important because the decisions that those people are making are bigger.”

Alder is serving as the chair of elections, along with co-chair Ethan Conlee, the current student advocate VP. Alder facilitates and coordinates the elections, and the elections committee sets up voting, encourages people to vote and helps with other election events.

Elections are divided into two parts.

Voting for the executive board will take place Feb. 22-23 with a potential runoff on Feb. 24. All students, including those on the statewide campuses, can vote for these positions.

Voting for senate and statewide positions will take place on Feb. 27-28 with a potential runoff on Mar. 1. For students in Logan, this round of voting includes the Logan Campus Executive Council.

Elle Brown-Horton, USUSA’s public relations director, said in November, there was a special election to amend the USUSA Constitution.

“This change allowed us to shorten the elections period from three weeks to about a week,” Brown-Horton said. This year there will be rank-choice voting, another change to the elections.

“We have incorporated rank-choice voting in our system this year,” Alder said. “And what that entails is the likelihood of going on to a runoff election is slimmer than it was in the years past.”

Rank-choice voting, also known as preferential voting, is a voting system where voters rank their candidates in a sequence of first, second, third and so on. Voting is done online at vote.usu.edu.

USU has its own system for tabulating votes, and a small committee of people confirm the votes to make sure they are correctly counted.

Election results are announced at 9 a.m. the morning after the voting is closed.

Dakota Oldham, current USUSA executive director of student events, said it is important to know who to vote for.

“I believe the students at Utah State should make an effort and read through all candidate profiles,” Oldham said. “We as student leaders spend a lot of time being your voice and starting the conversations of advocating for you.”

Information on each of the positions and responsibilities, along with information on each of the candidates, can be found at elections.usu.edu.

“I feel the best thing for people to do also is to educate themselves on the website because you can look up what people’s responsibilities are,” Rydalch said. “You don’t have to know everything, but even having a little bit of information. If you know, then you can help someone else as well.”

Caitlin Keith is from Utah and is currently a junior studying journalism. Other than writing, she enjoys watching and ranting about tv shows or sports, speaking German and eating snacks.

— A02312868@usu.edu