The ASUC Elections Council convened Friday to determine the order of candidates on the ballot and the various propositions that will be voted on in the upcoming elections.
For each proposition, members of the council looked over the entire referendum to ensure that the language in each statement was unbiased and ready for the ballot. The council made a few changes to the language in some of the propositions, but they largely remained untouched. Since it was not a mandatory meeting, most candidates were not present.
The order of propositions on the ballot, as decided by the council, will be Protecting the Checks and Balances of the ASUC Constitution, the Graduate Assembly fee, the Student Technology Fund fee and the Daily Cal Initiative.
The council then proceeded to decide the order of ASUC executive and senate candidates on the ballot.
There are eight candidates running for executive positions, one candidate running for the transfer student representative position, 28 senate candidates and one candidate running for the student advocate position.
Of the ASUC Senate candidates, 17 are running independently, which includes the six candidates running under the newly formed Elevate Cal coalition.
In order to avoid bias in the elections, there will be an A and a B ballot, according to Megan Fox, director of student government advising and leadership development. Executive candidates will be in alphabetical order on ballot A and then reversed for ballot B.
“So half of all eligible voters will receive ballot A and half of all eligible voters will receive ballot B,” Fox said during the meeting. “The randomization is to account for inverse order, so there’s no bias on ballots.”
For the ASUC Senate positions, independent candidates will be listed first on the ballot.
Within the group of independent candidates, each candidate was assigned a number and then an order was randomly determined using an online number generator. This order will be used for ballot A and reversed for ballot B.
The ASUC Senate candidates with a party affiliation will appear after the independent candidates. Parties assign a predetermined order for how their candidates will appear on the ballot, which will be used for ballot A and reversed for ballot B. The only registered party in this election is Student Action.
ASUC elections will be held virtually from April 5 to April 7.