The deadline to submit candidacy forms for the upcoming Oakland University Student Congress elections has been extended to Monday, Feb. 6 at 5 p.m.

According to OUSC bylaws, candidates for the election must submit their names for consideration on the ballot eight weeks prior to an election, held at the end of March.

Due to oversight, OUSC leadership did not realize that election notifications needed to be sent out.

OUSC President Benjamin Eveslage explained the source of the confusion.

“We were looking at the bylaws last week (Monday) and for the elections commission we saw that it stated that the submission for the candidacy for legislators and president and vice president tickets were due eight weeks prior to the beginning of elections,” Eveslage said.

He went on to say that a separate clause of the bylaws allows some flexibility in the date to declare candidacy by a vote of the elections commission.

“The elections commission, once they’re formed, can vote and change the deadline,” Eveslage said.

Lisa Vecchio has the role of elections commission chair as OUSC’s administrative assistant.

The junior, double majoring in political science and philosophy, said she has selected six voting members of the commission.

Members were approved by the 23 members of the current legislature.

Commission members cannot run for any office or endorse a candidate for this election.

Commission members agreed to a one-week extension of the deadline for a declaration of candidacy.

Despite the delay, Eveslage is confident a one-week extension will be all that is needed. He is using social networking in order to ensure students know about the date change.

“We’ve already put banners and flyers up,” he said. “We have Facebook ads out. We also have a Facebook event, and we’ve been posting periodically.”

Eveslage said the Facebook ads have been targeted at all current OU students.

All 23 legislative positions are up for election. Students wishing to run for president and vice president must file a joint ticket with their running mate.

For more information, visit oakland.edu/ousc/elections.

 

Contact staff reporter Kevin Graham via e-mail at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @KevinGraham88