Students can vote for 50 Senators, the Student Body president, vice president and treasurer in eight polling locations across campus on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23. Here are the candidates representing the executive tickets for the Gator and Change Parties.
Tickets were originally offered exclusively to UF students and went on sale Jan. 25. Roughly 3,000 people were expected to attend, and all 700 pit tickets sold out on the first day of sales, said Student Government Productions Chairman Jake Siegel. The show’s capacity was 6,500, according to the performers’ contract.
The SG Elections Commission announced polling locations Tuesday. Eight locations on UF campus will be open for student voting from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 22 and 23.
Students can vote for 50 senators and the Executive Cabinet in SG’s Spring election on Feb. 22 and 23. Five parties are registered: The Gator Party, Change Party, Communist Party, Keg Party and Waffle House Party. Polls will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on election days, per SG election codes. Students who are unable to vote in-person can request absentee ballots through an online form before 5 p.m. on Wednesday, said Supervisor of Elections Alexandra Stedman.
For the first time since 2020, Student Government Productions opened up its concerts to the general public.
On the lawn of the Reitz Union Tuesday morning, the candidates made their debut in front of silver balloons that read ‘FORWARD’ in front of an audience of about 30 students.
Two Student Government parties announced their candidates for executive positions three weeks before elections start. Feb. 22 and 23, UF students can cast their votes for a new Student Body president, Vice President and Treasurer. Students will also choose 50 new senators to take over seats organized by college and credit hours.
Concluding statements were cut short when Siddharth Krishnan, a member of the UF Communist Party, announced from the back of the room that a COVID-19-positive student was on the way to the debate.
The concert, which is for UF students only, will be held at the O’Connell Center at 7 p.m. and was announced through social media posts along with an update to the student government website. Doors to the event will open at 6 p.m.
After a Fall semester that saw graduate seat vacancies and an unusually low number of bills on the Senate floor, SG officers are preparing for the Spring semester.
Following the Fall 2021 elections, both the Graduate and Family Housing seats remained vacant. Seven total votes were cast for only write-in candidates.
Last Spring, SG passed 19 bills — at least 11 of which were resolutions. This semester, SG passed less than half of that. Seven bills were approved in the Senate chamber since September: three were resolutions.
Senate unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday advocating for pedestrian safety at the intersection of University Avenue and Northwest 26th Street.
The annual address allows SG’s executive branch to list their accomplishments of the semester and what is to come. Tuesday’s address was the first in-person address since 2019, as SG held the most recent address online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since September, canvassers who claim to support Seminole Native American tribes have been spotted around campus collecting signatures for a cause many students know nothing about.
Built in April of 2009, the UF Veterans Memorial originally consisted of flags, a fountain and five granite pillars for each branch of the military. Now, the pond’s murky green water collects algae and has fallen into disrepair.
Gator Party has held a majority in Senate for more than a year since Spring 2020 when it won its first executive ticket. Now, with about 70 Gator senators in the chamber, the composition of Senate committees echoes this majority.
Although open to the public, standing Student Government committee meetings are often only announced on a clipboard on the ground floor of the Reitz Union. Students who do not pass the area and are not members of the committees themselves have no other means to find out SG meeting dates and times.
Some senators were dissatisfied with the picks for 21 committee seats and five open permanent Senate seats.
Senate elected its former Rules and Ethics Chair Annabelle Groux (Gator, District A) and former Judiciary Chair Noah Fineberg (Gator, District A) to serve as senate president and senate pro-tempore respectively.
Solutions by The State News
