By scheduling student elections for next Wednesday, the Election Advisory Committee has made a judgment error which will have negative consequences.
In past years, an interval of up to a month between the announcement of candidates and the date of elections gave the student body time to become acquainted with the candidate pool.
Such a time period allowed candidates to reach out to the student body with more effective means than the posters currently decorating dormitory bulletin boards and last night's hastily planned, inadequately advertised and poorly attended Candidate Fair.
Without this vital interval between announcements and elections, there is little time for true debate of the crucial issues facing students. Currently, few candidates even have posters up, and students are completely ignorant of both the candidates' identities and their platforms.
In addition, this year's rushed campaign period and premature elections will only decrease already low voter turnout, resulting in the election of a president and vice president without sufficient mandates for action.
The EAC cited candidate exhaustion as a reason for dramatically shortening the campaign period. But a presidential or vice presidential candidate who cannot handle a month of soliciting votes is hardly fit for the demands of a year in office.
As former Student Assembly Vice President Nahoko Kawakyu's resignation last term demonstrates, a commitment to the Assembly requires a significant amount of time and energy. Candidates could take advantage of a long campaign period to prepare themselves for the rigors of the Assembly.
By giving candidates only a week to make their positions known, the EAC will only exacerbate the existing problem of student apathy, while also downplaying the significance of the Student Assembly's role on campus.
In the future, a campaigning phase of up to a month, filled with debates and opportunities for meeting with students, would provide candidates with adequate preparation for the very roles they seek to fill.
