Brenda Tavakoli
Senior Staff Writer
As the Students' Association gears up to elect a new administration, concerns are surfacing that only active SA members know about the elections.
The student body votes on SA positions such as president and senators-at-large each March.
Past elections were plagued by low voter turnout and a lack of knowledge about the elections.
At Wednesday's meeting, Sens. Jennifer Watson and Amaury Nora introduced a bill that addressed concerns about how the election has been run so far.
The legislation stated that the elections "have not been promoted throughout the University of Houston campus" and would result in a senate that would "not be a representation of the entire student body."
The bill recommended that the filing deadline for candidates be extended to Feb. 27 in order to allow more students a chance to run for office.
It also called for the director of public relations and election commissioners to "be required to promote the election to the student body at the University of Houston."
The bill failed in a vote of 10 to 2 after discussion of the procedures used to promote the election.
Watson and Nora said that promoting the election in SA meetings would not be enough to garner candidates from the student body.
They said that few students outside of SA seemed aware of the impending elections or how to file to become candidates.
"By announcing it (the election) to the SA, you are announcing it to the general public," Nathan Wittman, speaker of the senate, said.
Brenda Johnson, SA's public relations director, said, "The last time an ad was put in (The Daily Cougar) was, I believe, three years ago."
"SA elects every March. That's nothing new," she added.
Yet, in a post-meeting discussion with The Daily Cougar, Nora expressed concern that students new to UH were not aware of the election.
"There were no announcements in The Daily Cougar. This is obviously business as usual."
"Just because last year nothing happened does not mean it should be (the same) this year," Nora said.
He went on to call the situation "a joke" and said, "It's a travesty when our university does not promote elections.
"Changes should come from the student government," Nora concluded.
Jose Soto, senator from the College of Humanities, Fine Arts and Communication also spoke with The Daily Cougar after the meeting adjourned.
"As far as I know, it (the election deadline) was reported in the paper last week."
Andriana Quintero, a senator-at-large who is running for SA president, said, "I would think they (interested students) would take the initiative to find out the information."