{"id":1277,"date":"2019-05-04T10:37:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T15:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2019-05-04T10:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T15:43:34","slug":"student-senate-comments-on-election-data-and-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/blog\/2019\/05\/04\/student-senate-comments-on-election-data-and-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Senate comments on election data and process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Student Senate Elections are a tradition on most campuses.<\/p>\n

The Spring 2019 election for the Winona State University Student Senate was no different.<\/p>\n

Ben\u00a0Ellgen,\u00a0newly elected\u00a0Student Senate president said the Senate considers 10\u00a0percent\u00a0of the student\u00a0body voting to be a success, which is about 800 students out of about 8,000 students.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Spring 2019 election data\u00a0904\u00a0Winona State\u00a0students voted.<\/p>\n

Of those who voted in the 2019 election a total of 796 students voted for the\u00a0treasurer tickets and 804 voted for the\u00a0president and\u00a0vice\u00a0president tickets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The graph above illustrates the total number of voters over the past four elections. The two Spring elections are when the executive board and the constitution revisions are voted on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ellgen\u00a0commented on the voter turnout for the Spring 2019 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI frankly was a little disappointed. I love\u00a0Senate and I know the good work it can do,\u201d\u00a0Ellgen\u00a0said. \u201cI would have liked to see more people participate. Especially in a contested election.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Spring 2018,\u00a0election the candidates for the executive positions ran unopposed.<\/p>\n

For treasurer in Spring 2018, 916 people voted for the position,\u00a0120 more people than the most recent election.<\/p>\n

The president and vice president ticket in the Spring of 2018 had 923 people who voted, 119 more people than the most recent election.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This graph illustrates the number of total votes versus the number of votes for each executive position during the executive election years. In both of those elections the total number of votes is more than the votes for the executive positions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lowest voter turnout was for the Fall of 2018. 466 Winona State Students voted in the election.<\/p>\n

The elections are not only used to elect\u00a0student leaders\u00a0but also to have the student body vote for changes to the constitution.<\/p>\n

Christina Melecio, current Student Senate president said in order to approve any constitution changes Senate,\u00a0needs 10\u00a0percent\u00a0of the student body to vote and the majority to approve it.<\/p>\n

The Spring of 2018 vote was close to not passing with 811 votes.<\/p>\n

Melecio said there are two rules\u00a0for candidates\u00a0that are talked about more because they are the rules\u00a0most often broken.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first one would be no campaigning within 25 feet of the\u00a0Senate office,\u201d Melecio said. \u201cThen there is no spending more than $250 per ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the\u00a0president and\u00a0vice\u00a0president run as a ticket,\u00a0meaning they run together. They have $250 to spend together.<\/p>\n

The $250 is for\u00a0posters, buttons, stickers or anything else\u00a0the person running feels they need for their campaign.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Swenson_StudentSenateElections_4-30-19.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Nicole Ruhland and Ben\u00a0Ellgen\u00a0described their experience with the process when they ran for\u00a0president against each other in the Spring 2019 election.<\/p>\n

Ellgen\u00a0said the process of the election was long but rewarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of time, lot of late nights, a lot of going out to clubs, a lot of interactions,\u201d\u00a0Ellgen\u00a0said. \u201cIt is definitely an intensive process.\u00a0But,\u00a0at the same time,\u00a0it’s really rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellgen\u00a0said\u00a0it\u00a0was a humbling process.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it is not fun that week or two.\u00a0But,\u00a0again,\u00a0it is so rewarding to get out into the Winona\u00a0Community\u00a0and it is such humbling process,\u201d\u00a0Ellgen\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Ruhland said the process was interesting and she learned a lot about herself.<\/p>\n

Ruhland has never campaigned like this before. She said she was not used to talking about herself and what she wanted to do.<\/p>\n

She did learn she can public speak and\u00a0said she appreciated meeting so many people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to meet a lot of people and that was exciting,\u201d Ruhland said. \u201cIt also made me realize that I can do public speaking. It’s scary but it is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the Winona State Student Senate:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.winona.edu\/studentsenate\/Media\/WSUSA-Constitution.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.winona.edu\/studentsenate\/Media\/Bylaws.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.winona.edu\/studentsenate\/default.asp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student Senate Elections are a tradition on most campuses. The Spring 2019 election for the Winona State University Student Senate was no different. Ben\u00a0Ellgen,\u00a0newly elected\u00a0Student Senate president said the Senate considers 10\u00a0percent\u00a0of the student\u00a0body voting to be a success, which is about 800 students out of about 8,000 students. According to the\u00a0Spring 2019 election data\u00a0904\u00a0Winona … Continue reading Student Senate comments on election data and process<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":1274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,467,3,49,514],"tags":[515,469,6,516],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-campus-news","category-college","category-news","category-winona-state-university","category-wsu-student-senate","tag-campus-news","tag-college","tag-winona-state-university","tag-wsu-student-senate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Swenson_StudentSenateElections_4-30-19_2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educate.winona.edu\/winona360\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}