In an effort to increase voter turnout, student government elections are coming nearly a month sooner this year with polls opening April 8.

Rebecca Stogner, sociology junior and student government president, said, “The elections have been changed from May to April so that it doesn’t conflict with students finals or studying for finals. It is at a time when students can better focus on the election and decide for themselves who they want to vote for without having testing on their minds.”

This is not the only change made with the election process this year; measures have been taken to prevent campaign violations and other problems from the past from occurring.

“Rebecca has been working very hard to make sure that the election runs smoothly without any violations,”said David Joseph, marketing senior and student government secretary. “She has gone over the bylaws with each candidate in depth to make sure they fully understand the rules of campaigning.”

This emphasizing of the rules has been done to prevent campaign violations such as those that happened last year in regards to proxy voting. To further prevent this, the current SGA officers, who are not running for re-election, will man voting stations in the student center where students can conveniently vote for the candidate of their choice.

Joseph said, “This on-the-spot voting was part of my strategy last year, and I believe it is part of the reason for the increase of voters last year. I think having voting stations in a high traffic area like the Clark Student Center is going to increase the number of students voting this year.”

Both Stogner and Joseph said they have high hopes for this year’s elections.

“When I ran for SGA president last year I was unopposed for most of the election allowing me to relax, since not having any competition meant I had already won; I am happy to see three candidates for president this year. This means they will have to compete the entire time and it gives the voters a choice,” Stogner said.

Joseph said, “I strongly believe in the democratic system. Nobody should just automatically win; that isn’t fair to the voters. I encourage students to run for SGA to add diversity and give voters a choice.

SGA officers will be announcing voting times via social media letting students know when the polls open each day of the campaign, which ends April 12.