Bakersfield College will be conducting the student body elections during Spring Fling week March 22-25.
The elections will take place in the Fireside Room March 24-25, and will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Elections will also take place on the Delano campus, the Weill Institute downtown and Stockdale High School from 5-6 p.m.
The registration dates for candidates to enter into the elections were March 1-17. The process included gathering 50 signatures from registered students as well as writing a 100-word statement about their intentions.
In addition, students are required to have a GPA minimum of 2.0 and attend a mandatory workshop, according to Athena Laru, SGA general counsel.
There are seven paid positions that anyone can run for; there are also non-paid senator positions.
Paid positions are $8 an hour and are not to exceed 19 hours a week. Paid positions are also required to complete a minimum of 12 hours per week, except for the president, who is required to complete a minimum of 15 hours per week.
The positions available for office in the election include the offices of the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, general counsel, activities liaison, legislative liaison and senators.
Laru would like to encourage anyone interested to get involved in the student government system.
“Even if you don’t want to run for one of the paid positions, still put your name on the ballot for senators. We just think the more people get involved, the more likely they are to actually want to serve the SGA.”
BC will also be utilizing the poll officials with the Kern County Elections Office again to run the election sites. Laru is hoping that their involvement will avoid any suspicion of tampering with the election results.
“Poll officials will come and actually run the sites for us. They will be doing the ballots and making sure they’re secure and tamper free,” said Laru.
“What better way than to have off site officials who run the polls for presidential elections to come in and run the polls for us.”
The election will also include debates from the candidates on March 22, in the free speech area. Laru commented on the debates and noted that they are more intended to be a formal introduction of the candidates to the student body.
“I heard a lot of people noticed that we’re doing debates, so they’re kind of skeptical about that, which they’re not really debates, it’s just more of an open forum to use the platform for the students to get to know you and put a name to a face and that way you can speak directly to them as to why they should vote for you. This is your student body so I thought ‘what a great way to be able to address your student body.’ ”
According to Laru, the voting process will be similar to previous elections. The election may also include a drawing but the details are unconfirmed at this time.
“When you go to the polling sites, there will be a list with all the students’ names on it. You’ll need to bring your student ID card, they’ll verify your picture to your ID number, then you’ll sign and then you can go vote.”