The Florida A&M Student Senate held an emergency meeting Thursday evening. The meeting was held to discuss new election dates due to the university being closed during the original dates.
Aaricka Freeman, the electoral commissioner, proposed online voting to the Student Senate.
“To be brief, there are a plethora of concerns that will arise if elections were not to happen,” Freeman said. “One being, there would be no one to fulfill the positions that are going to be vacant after May. Two, I wouldn’t feel right ending my term with only half of the job done. Three, it would be a disservice to the students who have dreamed of the positions they are potentially seeking, and not to mention revoking the student body their right to vote in student elections and properly practice the democratic process. This is why online voting was proposed,” Freeman said.
The Electoral Commission and Office of Student Activities would utilize the software Qualtrics if the online voting is approved. The software is already used by the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors.
Andre Green , the director of Efferson Student Union, Activities and New Student Orientation, demonstrated the software for the gallery.
Student body president Rochard Moricette strongly supported online voting, and wrote a memorandum in hope of the Student Senate approving online voting for spring elections.
“I strongly encourage the 49th Student Senate to take these measures into strong consideration,” Moricette said. “I wholeheartedly believe we have the appropriate student senators in place to be solution oriented and resolve this situation.”
After the resignation of Elections and Appointments chairwoman, Carrington Whigham, freshman Senator Marcus Thomas was appointed Elections and Appointments chairman.
Thomas will release a referendum in the upcoming weeks to fix SGA documents to be suitable for online voting.
“We have to make a few adjustments to the documents and the election codes so that we can proceed with online voting,” Thomas said. ”Right now we have nothing in our documents about online voting.”
Perspective candidates will declare online via iStrike if online voting is approved.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:23 p.m.