For the first time in elections history at North Carolina A&T, there will be no Student Government Association presidential candidate on the ballot on election day.

Due to confusion, the two candidates who were running for this position were both disqualified because the requirements to run for this position were not fulfilled by either candidate.

For the last few years, many people have thought that as long as someone has been elected to SGA in any position, that individual would not have to obtain signatures.

Because both candidates were elected to their positions, neither of them collected signatures, thinking that they wouldn’t need to.

“We’ve never had people who have ran [for SGA President or executive office] that were only members of the class officers association. If they did they had previous experience as a member of the senate,” said Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Development Denise Iverson-Payne. Iverson-Payne advises the Elections Committee, but doesn’t make any decisions on how they operate.

“You’ve got a special situation going on right now. We’ve got a person who has been a class officer for three years, and has never been in the senate. The other candidates’ only experience is just this year being elected to class office. Those experiences do not qualify.”WHAT HAPPENEDCurrent Junior Class President Wayne Kimball Jr. and Senior Class Vice President Sir Lawrence Conley had both applied to run for the position of president. When looking at the qualifications and requirements as stated in the SGA Constitution, the issue of who is eligible and who is not begins to unfold.

The SGA Constitution states in Article VI, Section I, subsection f, the requirements for the office of SGA President. In order for a potential candidate to be qualified, they must meet the GPA requirement of a 2.5, have at least 60 credit hours, and must have been a member of the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branch of SGA.

If a candidate has not been a member of these groups, they must obtain signatures from 1/3 of the total campus enrollment for the fall semester. This year 1/3 of the 10,614 students we had enrolled in the fall would be 3,538.

However, the Constitution also states in Article VI, Section IV, under class president, Sub section g, that class presidents must serve as ex-officio members of the Executive branch. But this contradicts Article V, Section I, which specifies that class officers are not executive branch members.

As it reads now, the only members of the SGA that are recognized as Executive branch members are the president, v.p. of internal affairs, v.p. of external affairs, secretary, treasurer, attorney general, and Mr. and Ms. A&T.

Part of the confusion is due to the designation of where class officers belong in the realm of student government. According to Iverson-Payne, class officers were not an actual part of SGA until about 2005, when Dean of Students Dr. Judy Rashid brought them in. Prior to that, the class officers were considered individual organizations, just like the many other organizations on campus.

At the time the class officers reported to the Council of Presidents. The class officers were given their own portion of SGA in the Class Officers Association. The President of the COA is the senior class president, and they are given their own regulations in Section V of Article VI in the SGA constitution.

However, they are not currently considered a part of the legislative, executive, or judicial branch of government, which are all three branches of government. This creates yet another problem, because now the class officers are constitutionally not even a part of SGA, even though they are listed under the constitution in Article VI, as officers of SGA. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW AND WHO IS RESPONSIBLEElections Committee Chair Kanetra Washington was faced with a unique situation. Never in the history of A&T has this happened. At least two appeals had been filed in the wake of the two candidates being disqualified.

Washington said that because Elections Committee only has the power to enforce what guidelines the constitution lays out for them, all she was able to do was follow the constitution.

Washington contacted A&T University Legal to gain clarity on what the University defined as “ex-officio” and what that meant in terms of the election. The University legal department clarified it with this statement, which was sent out in the body of a letter to all students at approximately 6:31 p.m. last night:

Article V, Sec 1 defines the officers of the executive branch.  President of a class is not on that list.  A class president serves on the SGA Executive Board, ex officio, meaning by virtue of the office he/she holds.  (Sec. 4.g.)  Article VI, Sec 1.f. states that a candidate for President of the SGA may run without obtaining the required number of signatures when a person has served the requisite period of time “in an elected office as defined by the constitution as part of the Legislative, Executive, or Judicial Branch of the Student Government Association. . . .”  While not as clear as it could be, the phrase “elected office as defined by the constitution” appears to mean those offices identified in Article V, Sec.1. 

It is certain, however, that a class president is not an elected officer of the Executive Branch.  Thus, the class president does not meet the requirement to avoid the need to obtain signatures to run.

With this information, the committee decided to reopen the position of SGA President, and create a separate “special election” for SGA President.

“The committee decided that this was fair, and that it gave everyone equal opportunity to run,” Washington said.

Should Kimball and Conley choose to run, they both will have to obtain 3,538 signatures, 1/3 of the campus population, by March 16, the Tuesday after students return from spring break.

“We [Elections Committee] asked Dr. Rashid about the signatures and spring break, but because of the timeline, we decided to go forward with the process,” Washington said.

“They [the candidates] will still have the same amount of days as the regular candidates did, but they will have to work around spring break. They still will have Wednesday through

Friday of this week, and the Monday and Tuesday we return.”

Overall, the majority of this situation seems to stem from an issue with the SGA Constitution, which the SGA Student Senate has the power to correct. While the senate has had some positive moments this year, it has also been faced with numerous controversies, such as the homecoming situation with SGA President Syene Jasmin, and the embezzlement case with Attorney General Daniel Davis. However, the handlings of both of these incidents are part of the duties of the senate.

Anyone who wants to run for SGA President has from 12 a.m. this morning until 5 p.m. tonight to submit an application on OrgSync.com.

• Dexter R. Mullins