Were you disqualified from a student election last year for early campaigning on Facebook.com?
Well, the race is on once again: The Nominations and Elections Committee has officially gone Facebook-friendly.
The NEC, the branch of student government that handles elections, passed four amendments last week adjusting election procedures, and two will have a major impact on the election processes for the Undergraduate Assembly and Class Boards.
The Spending Period amendment will now allow students to begin campaigning - in any forms that doesn't cost money - whenever they want, but they will still have to wait until a specified day to begin spending money on their campaign.
Under the old campaign period, students were only allowed to campaign from 6 a.m. the day after the candidates officially meet until when the polls close.
"I think in the fall, it definitely [will decrease] the chance of violations," said College junior Dan Strigenz, who serves as the NEC's vice chairman of elections.
Specifically, NEC officials expect this amendment to prevent incidents like those that occurred in fall of 2005, when 18 violations were brought against freshman candidates for early campaigning on Facebook.
After the NEC clarified the rules this year governing electronic resources, no early campaigning violations were reported last fall.
The other significant amendment passed was the Signature Collection amendment, which will reduce the number of signatures most candidates are required to collect in order to run.
The specific number will vary by class and position, but most were reduced by half or more, with the exception of freshman candidates, whose numbers are still the same.
The overall goal for this change is to encourage more people to run, Strigenz said.
"I'm looking forward to not having to get as many signatures because it normally takes a lot of time," said College sophomore and class president Brett Perlmutter, who plans on running for reelection this year.
He added, however, that the signatures are not the biggest obstacle in running.
These amendments, Strigenz added, are the biggest change the NEC had made since they moved voting online to Penn InTouch.
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