The AMS Elections Committee will have to re-open nominations after no one nominated themselves as candidates for any of the five open positions on the Student Legal Fund Society (SLFS) board.
The SLFS is a student-funded group that helps students cover their legal fees and supports them with misconduct cases. Each year, students elect five people to serve on the group’s Board.
The lack of candidates came as a surprise to the Elections Committee, according to Varsha Gangadharan, the committee’s chief returning officer. She said it had expected at least one or two candidates to run.
“I honestly don’t know [why]. I mean, we’ve … promoted [it] a lot this year, compared to other years. It’s pretty surprising. I really don’t know,” said Gangadharan.
Nominations for the SLFS were open for two weeks, from February 4 to 18. The original voting period was scheduled for March 7 through 11, alongside other races for AMS execs, student senators and Board of Governors student representatives.
“Obviously because the positions are not filled yet, we have to recall nominations again,” Gangadharan said.
She said the committee planned to re-open nominations again after consulting with the SLFS, but that the new deadline for nominations remained unclear.
To avoid confusion, the committee hopes to have the voting period remain the same as previously scheduled.
Gangadharan said the elections team plans to increase its promotion of the SLFS board positions significantly to ensure they receive nominations this time around.
“The one way we are trying to avoid the lack of candidates for the election is ramping up our promotion two fold, at least. Make sure people know this is happening, and they will nominate themselves,” she said.
The SLFS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Follow us at @UbysseyNews on Twitter and follow our election coverage starting February 28. This article is part of our 2022 AMS elections coverage.