On Feb. 23 the Student Government Association held an emergency meeting to amend the new by-laws for this year’s elections, held in Bolin 100, with about 35 students in attendance.

Mark Brown, SGA vice-president, started off the meeting after roll call with a thank you to all who were in attendance then addressed some major points that were already amended in the new by-laws. 

“First major point, in the membership part, where you see the ‘The Board of Elections shall be composed of a chairman and four members appointed…,’ we changed it from anywhere from six members to 10 members to four members, because we came to the conclusion that the Board could run efficiently with four members,” Brown said. 

Brown also discussed other changes already made to the by-laws. For instance, to work with their Go Green committee, they are getting rid of ballots and moving everything online. The library is now off limits for campaigning, with the exclusion of a pre-approved poster for the board in the library.

Instead of having to get 25 signatures from students from your classification, you are just required to get 25 signatures from students in general. Brown addressed the officially defined voting proxy and illegal influence of voting.

“Voting by proxy meaning an individual gives his/her right of voting to another individual, is strictly prohibited,” Brown read off the new by-laws.

Finally, Brown addressed section six, Protests and Appeals, part two, which now states, “For an election to be thrown out, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the protesting individual that the candidate had violated the Election Code to an extent that it affected the outcome of the election in question. If proven, the responding candidate shall be removed from the race.”

After reading that Brown got the students to pass the by-laws, so they could go into amending it. 

After much debate on specifically section six number two, they changed the wording to be read, “For an election to be thrown out, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the protesting individual that the candidate had violated the Election Code of the election in question. This will go to the Board of Elections and if proven, the responding candidate shall be removed from the race.”

The rest of the new by-laws remained the same and the meeting was adjourned after Matthew Park, associate vice president for student affairs and dean, gave a quick description as to what the Insurance Committee was about and that they are looking for more members to join.