By: Nicholas Newcomb
Elisha Madison and Joshua Matthews will be the college’s next representatives to hold the office of Brockport student government president and vice president, respectively, after a few formalities including the official election in early April.
How can one predict the results of an election that hasn’t occurred yet?
Because Madison, BSG’s current chief of staff, and Matthews, the current chief justice, are running for BSG’s highest ranking offices uncontested.
In fact, the only office which will require a meaningful election process is that of treasurer. Every other candidate running for a senate position is also running uncontested meaning all they need to do to secure the position is tally one vote during the voting period – and that one vote can be themselves.
Jordin Paige, BSG’s former director of advocacy, and a freshman Delta College student had applied for an application to run for president/vice president and collected the 1,000 signatures necessary between the petitioning window of Wednesday, Feb. 1 and Wednesday, Feb. 15, but then withdrew their application either before or shortly after the petitioning period was over, according to Madison.
“Jordin brought up she had a lot of internship opportunities throughout the upcoming year and next summer, so one of the aspects was that she would have been too busy with those to effectively execute (the presidential position),” Madison, a computer information science major, said.
Since then, Madison and Matthews had no competition and were slated to become the student government’s president and vice president as long as the pair followed all the rules set forth in the election committee’s guidelines – and got that one single vote.
“It’s almost discouraging that this position isn’t attractive enough to want more people to apply for it,” Madison said. “There’s no feeling of the students chose me. It’s more like the students get me. I definitely preferred to have some sort of competition.”
There will still be debates as per usual – mostly centered on the treasurer candidates – and the questions directed towards the uncontested candidates will most likely operate town hall forum style as to still engage and answer questions from the public.
*For more on this story, Madison’s plans, ideas and journey into BSG, check back to the brockportbeat.com later in the week for the follow-up.*
Brockport Beat 
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