The new push from the SGA for students to participate in online voting campaigns is productive. Now, students are alerted to vote by little placards stuck in various places on the lawns on campus.
The only negative is that voting must be done during certain hours. This is infuriating. It’s a problem that several ETSU Internet functions suffer from. Some of us, being busy students, don’t always have time to log on and vote during our hectic days.
This phenomenon has been puzzling students for several years. Why does Goldlink turn off at 9 p.m.? For that matter, why does Goldlink have a generally grumpy disposition? It makes sense to assume that students will be more apt to work on systems like Goldlink or use the voting system later at night. It is a hassle to schedule a block of time during the day to devote to ETSU’s computer idiosyncrasies.
Another problem with the SGA elections, both the concert vote and the actual SGA elections, is that they are incredibly short term. This falls into the same category as the time constraints mentioned above.
It is simply inconvenient. Plus, extending the SGA elections might add suspense and intrigue. It would also give voting students time to look at and scrutinize the many fliers in the Culp.
The fliers themselves are suspect. Some of them are incredibly elaborate, featuring full color and obviously professional printing work. Also, these fliers do not usually list the goals of the candidate. It would be nice to have an election structured like a real political election, with debates and so on, instead of hosting a popularity contest flavored by who has the most expensive fliers.
While the SGA has apparently learned from their mistakes over the Ludacris scandal, it still has several issues that need to be worked out.
Most importantly, it needs to figure out how to actually serve the student body.

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