Tylenol might be the saving grace for Board of Elections Chairman Andrew Phillips.
The Board of Elections decided to try and make things easier for student election candidates by not having them register their campaigns as separate student organizations.
In previous years, that was how candidates gained access to websites from UNC. But members of the Office of Student Activities and Organizations gave space to the board with direction to distribute it to candidates.
But instead of making the process easier, it’s only delaying candidates’ use of websites on the UNC server.
“It’s been a constant headache,” Phillips said.
Now the candidates will have access to Joomla, a web space that the University provides.
Phillips said the Information Technology Department in the Department of Student Affairs will manage the sites and is working to have them running soon.
Four of the current candidates for student body president went to third party sources to create websites.
Candidate Dylan Gilroy said he does not have a website and never plans to develop one even when the UNC server becomes available.
Mary Cooper, another candidate, said she was told many times that the websites would be available the following day. After a few days of waiting, she purchased a URL for herself and created her own website, she said.
“We just decided that it’s really important to us that our idea gets out there and it’s really difficult without a website,” she said.
She said she plans to move the website onto the UNC server as soon as it becomes available.
None of the candidates said they were frustrated by the delay.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” said candidate Rick Ingram. “It was a little bit of a delay in us getting it up because the Board of Elections was a little confused and struggling.”
Ingram and candidate Ian Lee are both still unsure if they will continue to have the UNC address forwarded to their third party address or post information on the UNC server.
Ingram said if additional resources became available through the UNC server, he would transfer his website.
“I don’t see a need to change what we’ve got right now,” he said.
Lee said Phillips told him that he would speak to the technology department today to determine how much longer the delay for the websites will be.
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