No Sweat
No opposition for Klemchalk

By Mike Caputo

Voters in America possess a privilege to choose the candidate who best fits his or her interests. In the 2006 SGA elections, held in the Student Recreation Center for the first time, voters expressed their right to choose, but just didn’t have much of a candidate pool to select from.

As expected, unopposed junior Steve Klemchalk was elected SGA president for the 2006-2007 academic year. But Klemchalk was not the only candidate who ran unopposed. In fact, three of four SGA elections were uncontested.

In the only contested race, junior Nick Barbati emerged as the victor over sophomore Jenn Kamm in the SGA vice presidential race.

Current SGA President Perry Whiteley said that he, along with the rest of SGA, remains puzzled about the low number of candidates. But Whiteley credited the strength of the candidates in the pool being a major factor in the high number of unopposed races.

“We’ve been trying to go back and forth about this, and I really don’t have an answer,” said Whiteley. “I think one of the biggest things as far as the SGA race goes is that [there are] incumbents. Frank has done an amazing job as treasurer and Steve has done an amazing job as vice president, and I think that people are content with their jobs. Maybe there was some intimidation there, but I also think out of respect they ran unopposed.”

SGA elections were not the only races possessing a disappointing number of candidates. All four positions for the Association of Commuting Students (ACS) were filled unopposed, along with: three Finance Board seats, seven Residence Hall Association (RHA) positions and six class positions. Furthermore, the RHA secretary position and two class races were empty on the ballot.

“As far as the rest of the positions go I couldn’t give you an answer,” said Whiteley. “And I do think that we have a lot of seniors that are leaving now and I am hoping that our freshmen and sophomores will step up this year.”

Elections and Recruitment Chair sophomore Theresa Androvett claimed the thin ballot was a direct result of apathy for student body involvement.

“I feel that the candidate turnout was low because of the fact that not many students enjoy participating in SGA,” she said. “I hope that maybe this year they get more involved.”

Klemchalk admitted feeling awkward about running unopposed, but he said he took full advantage of the extra time he would have used campaigning for a race.

“It does feel different,” said Klemchalk. “I guess I’m thankful for it because instead of campaigning my brains out [this week] like I usually would do and getting myself sick and in the hospital, I spent time on looking at doing a retreat. I’m actually taking time to plan for next year, in lieu of campaigning. But I’m sure you probably saw the flyers up today and signs all around campus.”

Although the number of candidates was not high in the SGA, ACS, RHA, Finance Board and class elections, the voter turnout was impressive, said Whiteley. A total of 788 students voted in Thursday’s elections.

“It’s very interesting because we still got 788, even with so many uncontested races,” he said. “And we think that if next year we have it in this building and we have a much more interesting race, I think that we are going to smash our previous record.”

Last year marked the record for voter turnout, with an approximate number of 990.

There are still positions in SGA to be filled, said Klemchalk. To apply for one of the SGA appointed positions, students are advised to pick up an application in the Office of Campus Life starting today.