The Elections Planning and Advisory Committee will allow candidates to campaign today until the polls close at 11:59 p.m., reversing a previous decision to prohibit campaigning after noon, according to EPAC chair Justin Varilek '11. Unlike in previous years, however, candidates will not be allowed to create computer booths or bring computers to students to encourage them to vote via the online-only polling system.
EPAC informed all candidates on Sunday morning that campaigning would be prohibited after noon on Monday, but decided to rescind the decision after further discussion among EPAC members and with candidates following Sunday night's debate, Varilek said. EPAC decided instead only to ban candidates from approaching students with computers to solicit their vote.
"Last year, there were no rules explicitly dealing with whether or not candidates could bring computers up to potential voters or set up booths, so that was going on, and we couldn't really do anything about it," Varilek said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "We didn't want a situation like that to happen again, since it results in a situation in which candidates are influencing voters' abilities to vote based on their own judgment and opinions."
EPAC will set up computer booths in the Collis Center and Thayer Dining Hall, Varilek said. EPAC will also send out a campus-wide e-mail encouraging people to vote, he said.
"We spoke with all the candidates so they all know exactly what they can and can't do," he said. "We decided it would be clearest to only prohibit certain behavior that we felt would hurt the election process, while continuing to allow the candidates to campaign throughout the day."
EPAC rules previously stipulated that candidates could campaign for one week. The voting period traditionally fell on the last day of that week, allowing candidates to solicit votes throughout election day.
EPAC originally planned for this year's campaigning to end at midnight on April 19, but moved this deadline to noon on April 20 after the candidates said they wanted to campaign after the polls had opened, Varilek said.
"We decided it would be a good idea to allow the candidates to have more time to get the word out and get their message out to the student body," he said. "We want to make sure students are as knowledgeable as possible about the different candidates' opinions and stances."
Varilek added that despite the increase in campaign time, it is still EPAC's responsibility, rather than the candidates', to ensure that students vote.
"That's not so much the candidates' job as it is ours," he said. "They need to make sure people know who they are and what they stand for, but we need to make sure everyone goes out and actually votes."
While student body presidential candidate Boyd Lever '10 did not originally request increased time to campaign, he said he feels that it is a "good change."
"Being able to campaign [on Monday] is really important since some students might not have been following the election last week and only get involved the very last day," he said. "It allows those folks that may have been apathetic over the past week to get involved, and it gives us a chance to try to reach those students."
John Nolan '10, who is also running for student body president, agreed that the change was positive and said the new rules might prevent questionable behavior.
"To be honest, I assume all the candidates would have been campaigning tomorrow anyways, so this prevents people from getting sanctioned on election day," Nolan said.
He added that he understands why EPAC does not want the candidates to set up their own booths or go up to voters during the final hours.
"The change will help protect the voters from feeling pressured by a certain candidate who might come up and accost them at the last minute," he said. "The results should hopefully reflect more who the voters want to support, rather than who they feel pressured to vote for."
Frances Vernon '10, the third student body presidential candidate, also said that the extended campaigning period will be helpful.
"Especially the actual day of voting, it's really nice to have extra time," she said. "Every little bit of time helps."
