Andrew Hart, the supervisor of elections for Student Government, doesn’t just wait for packets to arrive to approve potential candidates. He spends months planning polling locations, organizing election packets and assembling members of deciding bodies in the election.
SG elections are a semester in the making.
In addition to involvement with student government at the University of Florida, Hart, 24, has experience working with a congressman in Capitol Hill. He wanted to become involved on campus in a new city, and SG seemed the best fit.
“I thought student government would be a good avenue to go through, so I applied for one of positions on the Supreme Court,” Hart said. “They found out that (while) working on these student government campaigns, we were under the jurisdiction of intense election codes.”
Because of this background, the court recommended Hart apply for supervisor of elections.
“I was talking about how it’s a very different student government system over [at UF] and sort of how I felt that the codes were very important,” Hart said. “I figured I’d help any way I can.”
He faced the “grilling” of SG senators about the supervisor position in his first days enrolled as a graduate student for Florida studies. He recalls questioning about bias in his position interview.
“One of the things they kept asking me was if I was going to be able to be unbiased,” Hart said. “I told them, ‘Guys, I’m a brand new student, I’ve never been to St. Petersburg before … I don’t know anyone on campus. I don’t know anything about your student government or about the cliques that are in student government … I don’t know that stuff, and I don’t intend to find out.”
Hart organized the fall semester elections for senators and built his Election Rules Commission. Students of different backgrounds, from political science majors to history majors, expressed interest in critical election decision-making. But he needed individuals who were qualified for his needs: no bias.
Hart isn’t daunted by the campaign concerns of spring 2013, when candidates Mark Lombardi-Nelson and Jimmy Richards competed for the student body president seat. His interviews with the court made it clear that SG wanted to keep it in the past.
“From what I understand, it [last election] was a series of events where codes weren’t followed and there were different interpretations going on,” Hart said. “We didn’t have enough people on the ERC to review the rules and procedures.” Without having enough people on the committee to make a decision, they couldn’t move forward, he explained.
The elections process is now smoother, according to Hart. With a full ERC instead of three members and an interim election instead of a midterm election gave him time as a new student to build a proper commission and set up for a better election.
Statutes and rules are critical to know, and Hart still reviews over them. He spends much of his time reading and analyzing both his graduate coursework and SG statutes in preparation for elections and selecting members of the Election Rules Commission.
“I still go over them,” Hart said. “It’s great if know you know the statutes by heart and the rules of procedure and things like that, but it’s always important to go back and look and make sure that you’re interpreting them correctly because we don’t want another catastrophe like what happened a year ago.”
Hart organized the final two weeks before spring voting to prepare his candidates. He assembled “Campaign Go-To” guides and rules packets, and set up meetings with the candidates during the qualification period this week. He emphasizes open contact between candidates and the ERC.
“If you have a question, ask it,” Hart said. “I’m a huge person on asking for permission instead of asking for forgiveness. Because when we ask for forgiveness, we find ourselves in a situation like last time.”
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