Elections, orientation set for April

This week’s canceled student government elections have restarted the entire elections process, sparking the Elections Board to set the applications deadline and orientation for the first week of spring term and the elections for the third week.

The Elections Board voted unanimously Thursday to postpone Associated Students of Portland State University elections until the third week of spring term, a decision that is pending approval by the student Senate meeting this coming Monday.

Elections will once more be open to all students who meet requirements and wish to submit an application. Applications for student office will be due no later than 5 p.m. on April 3, the second day of spring term. Candidate orientation will be held on April 3 and 4.

There will be two candidate debates: for the Senate and SFC on April 10, and for the president and vice president candidates on April 12. They will be held from 12 to 2 p.m. at sites that are still undetermined.

The PSU student government elections were canceled when the Elections Board discovered last week that no records were kept of candidate orientation attendance, a violation of the student constitution.

Another member of the Elections Board announced his plans to resign on Monday at Thursday’s meeting. Ethan Berleman, who was the chair of the Elections Board until last week, announced that he would be leaving the board due to personal reasons.

“I’ve been really stressed out in life, and I want to cut loose,” Berleman said.

Berleman’s resignation is the fourth resignation from the board in three weeks, and was the third chair of the Elections Board to resign in the last month. The chair before Berleman, Robert Stanley, resigned from the board on Feb. 23 after he was arrested for allegedly assaulting three women and one man.

Ethan Gross, the current chair of the Elections Board, and Jack Galliano came up with the new schedule, written on a whiteboard in the Student Government office that loomed large above the group discussion, after the original schedule was derailed.

Because the records of orientation participation are incomplete, one of the pressing questions the board was forced to ask last week was whether to scrap all applications and start over. There was some debate as to whether this was fair for students who had already begun campaigning.

“It makes sense to throw away the information we have,” said Sean Larkin, a member of the Elections Board. “We should get new information.”

However, it was decided that the election would be opened back up in spring. Election Board members will go through old applications and decide whether people will need to re-submit applications. All applicants will be required to attend the candidate orientation.

Candidates will also be notified that they have until next Thursday to remove all materials (such as posters and campaign fliers) from public places on campus. There are many on display, but the new filing date for the elections is still another month away.

“All partisan-like media should be taken down until we verify the candidates,” Larkin said.

Since elections will be at the beginning of the term, the Elections Board is reminding applicants to sign up for classes. PSU students are not required to register until the fourth week of the term, but the Elections Board will be checking to make sure that candidates are registered and in good standing.

Patrick Beisell, one of the candidates for president, was present at the meeting. He said it is important for him that the schedule is passed through the Senate, and all steps are taken to ensure fairness.

“I don’t want to see any more rules be broken,” Beisell said.