Eighty-three candidates will run in the upcoming ASUO election, up from 68 last year.
Candidates will contest 23 positions, ranging from ASUO president to a seat on the Student Building Fee Advisory Committee. At stake is a government controlling more than $11 million and the opportunity to represent University students before the University president and the state government.
The candidates met Thursday night for an election meeting in the EMU Ben Linder Room. There, Elections Coordinator Aaron Tuttle outlined the election rules.
The changes this year will include a stricter definition of campaign-related bribery. Tuttle said campaigns will now be restricted to distributing T-shirts among volunteers, though he admitted the distinction would be difficult to make.
The changes also restrict campaigns' ability to sell items. Tuttle said the changes targeted practices like those of current ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz's campaign in 2008, which sold slices of pizza to students for 25 cents.
"We really want to make it about the issues, not about who gave you something for free," Tuttle said.
This year will also be the first in which candidates will be allowed to place the names of their slates next to theirs on the ballot. Slates are platforms shared by candidates in multiple races, equivalent to political parties.
Tuttle said putting slate names on the ballot was a concession to slate politics after the elections board decided to change the order in which candidates' names are put on the ballot.
Traditionally, candidates' names were put in order of the date they filed their candidacies. Members of slates traditionally file at the same time, so voters who wanted to support a slate without memorizing candidates' names could simply vote based on ballot position.
This year, candidate names will appear in an order determined by last name in a randomly-generated alphabet created by Tuttle at the meeting. The slate names will be included to help voters who want to vote based on slate politics.
Three slates have been formed for the election - the conservative Oregon Action Team, the centrist Students First slate and the progressive True Blue Student Coalition. All but 17 of the candidates are running on slates.
Though candidates had discussed holding debates for every position, Tuttle said the elections board would not have time to stage the debates. ASUO Sen. Hailey Sheldon, who is running to retain her seat, said she would try to organize debates herself.
Though he had originally planned to encourage candidates to cap spending for their campaigns, Tuttle said the final decision on candidate spending will be made during a March 16 meeting with the five tickets for ASUO Executive.
Tuttle said his biggest hope for the campaign was that candidates would run clean campaigns without attacks. Dotters-Katz encouraged candidates to remember they will have to live with the decisions they make during their campaigns.
"You will be your own judge, your own conscience," Dotters-Katz told the candidates.
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