As the Sam Houston State University Student Government Association’s campaigning season winds down, the polls will soon open for elections. Beginning at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, students will be able to log online and cast their votes for president,vice president,secretary, treasurer and senators. Polls will close at 8 p.m. on April 16.
This year, instead of logging onto SamWeb to vote, Banner’s Student Voice program will be sending out an e-mail to all students with a link to vote.
“Student Voice is going to be conducting it this time around, due to a change in university policy as to jurisdiction of this sort of thing,” Dean of Students John Yarabeck said. “[That] means there’s going to be more of an e-mail format.”
The e-mail will contain specifics about how to vote as well as a link.
Once a student has been logged as a cast vote, the student will not be able to log on again to change the vote, complete a ballot or look over their selections.
“It’s very important for students to understand that once they click on that thing, they have to complete it then,” Yarabeck said. “Once you send it in, that’s all.”
According to Yarabeck, last year the final tally of votes was under 1,000, and the new format will hopefully increase the number of votes.
“I think this physically gives everyone an option to vote. They’re going to be sent, assuming they’re going to check their e-mail in the next two days, which most do,” Yarabeck said. “They’ll be given an opportunity to vote, instead of remembering to log on to the Sam website and click a specific thing. I think there’s every reason to believe the voter turnout will be much greater.”
Student Voice will be sending e-mails to the addresses listed by the school, so students are encouraged to update their e-mail addresses through SamWeb in order to get the email to vote.