Special elections to fill 13 vacant seats in Congress will take place at various poll sites on campus. Students are only allowed to cast votes for the empty seats for the district in which they live.
Off-campus districts 18, 19, 21, 24 and 25 all have vacancies. Dist. 18 represents Granville Towers, and the other off-campus districts are in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.
There are also vacancies in graduate districts 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9, and undergraduate districts 16 and 17. Dist. 16, which has two open seats, represents residents of Hinton James and Morrison residence halls, and Dist. 17 represents Craige and Ehringhaus residence halls and Odum Village, student family housing.
Room 205-206 of the Student Union, the Hanes Art Center lobby, Chase Hall and Lenoir Dining Hall will be open to voters.
Speaker Alexandra Bell said holding special elections to fill congressional vacancies was not uncommon. "I don't think I've ever heard about a Congress that had all 37 seats filled."
The process for special elections began when Jeremy Berkeley-Tuchmayer was named Elections Board chairman in mid-September. The position had been vacant since April, when Congress rejected Student Body President Brad Matthews' nomination of former Elections Board Vice Chairwoman Marissa Downs. After being appointed, Berkeley-Tuchmayer selected an Elections Board, which was approved by Congress on Oct. 3.
Bell said representatives in Congress have had to leave this year for a variety of reasons, including acceptance to medical school and a job on the George W. Bush presidential campaign.
But Berkeley-Tuchmayer was hopeful that most of the seats could be filled. "It's a good chance that we'll have between six and eight of the 13 seats filled," he said.
Students said the seats in undergraduate districts are more likely to be filled since graduate students are usually hesitant to join Congress."Graduate students just have ungodly amounts of work to do and just can't make the Tuesday night commitment for a whole year," Bell said.
