UPDATE: The Election Commission met Friday night and voted unanimously to approve the following updates to the election timeline:

• Campaigning will begin Feb. 11.
• Statements of intent for senators and executive slates are due Feb. 11 at 9 p.m.
• Referenda and student initiatives are due Feb. 22 at 5 p.m.
• Candidate petitions are due Feb. 25 at 5 p.m.

Students seeking more information on how to get involved in Student Government may contact Election Commissioner Emily Rizvic.

ORIGINAL: The Election Commission met Thursday to discuss delaying the 2019 Student Government Election by one week.

Election Commissioner Emily Rizvic said this past week of bad weather, a change in commissioners and a canceled information session was the reason for the change in schedule.

Following the resignation of previous Commissioner Bradlee Fair, Rizvic was installed as the election commissioner during the Jan. 16 meeting.  

The Student Government election was originally scheduled for March 6 and 7, but the Election Commission moved to push the election dates back a week, to March 12 and 13. The election date is the only part of the election cycle that would be affected; the candidates are still able to start campaigning on Feb. 4 and the debates will take place on Feb. 19 and 26. The motion was passed with a vote of 4-0-0.

The information session slated for Wednesday was canceled due to the severe weather conditions and university-wide cancellation of classes. During the meeting, the commission discussed adding an additional information session next week to make up for the canceled one.  

This is not the first time this year that deadlines have been pushed back to allow candidates more time.

The original deadline for executive Student Government candidates to declare their intent to run was Jan. 18, which has been pushed back twice this election cycle, first to Jan. 25 and finally to Friday, the same date that senators must declare their intent.

Last semester, five amendments were made to the 2019 Election Code during the Nov. 15 meeting, including the following amendments:

Sen. Jacob Schrader introduced an amendment to allow candidates the ability to utilize private funds for their campaigns rather than taking funding from Student Government. If a candidate wants to use private funding, however, they must collect an additional 150 signatures on their campaign bid.

Sen. Analese Hauber proposed an amendment that would require campaigns to provide “gift in-kind letters” and copies of the checks for the Election Commission if campaigns received private funding and allow the list of checks and letters to be displayed to the public if needed.

Sen. Courtney Beringer proposed an amendment allowing the two required hours of outreach to be satisfied through events and other social media outreach activities that are approved by the Election Commission.