The University’s campus may have been overwhelmed with The Link’s yellow T-shirts last spring, but this year’s Student Government Association is making sure yellow won’t be the only color on campaign shirts.

SGA has changed the rules for executive and senatorial campaigns this year – starting with the parties. In the past, tickets could include both senate and presidential candidates running on the same platform and endorsing each other – and they could hold as many as 30 people.

Now, a ticket cannot have more than eight people, which Mallory Davis, SGA president, said will help foster a more diverse election atmosphere.

Student Government Association President Mallory Davis said eight-person parties strengthen the organization. She is optimistic about the changes. SEAN TAYLOR/Staff

“I think it’s a great thing because there are a lot of opinions out there and there are a lot of ideas that people have about things we need to change at UGA,” said Davis, a junior communications studies and English double major from Grayson.

SGA has had a stigma of being too internal – it’s hard to get elected to a position if you don’t know someone in the organization already. Now that party sizes are limited, there will be more parties running in this campaign, which Wes Robinson, SGA Attorney General, said will make it easier for people to run for election on their own terms.

“Technically anybody can get involved in SGA but there are so many informal barriers that prevent people from getting involved and we just tried to eliminate as many of those as possible,” said Robinson, a senior political science major from Roswell.

This means an executive with little-to-no experience in SGA could be elected in April. But Davis said that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“You really can’t prepare yourself for this position. It helped that I’d had some senatorial experience and I was exposed to the way the structure worked,” Davis said. “I think the person will be at a slight disadvantage, not having been in the organization before, but I don’t think it will be extremely detrimental and could put them completely behind the ball.”

With more parties also come more diverse ticket platforms, which Davis said would hold senators accountable for their elected positions.

“I know that when I ran for senate, it was very easy to kind of ride the coattails of the executives,” Davis said. “And so I feel like the new system is going to put more pressure on senators to truly do what they’re elected to do, which is to come up with platform points that are specific to their college, specific to the educational experience, and whichever constituent area they’re representing.”

Davis said this means candidates will campaign outside their specific colleges, speaking with students with similar majors about the issues that concern them the most, instead of campaigning the executive ticket at Tate.

While in the past it may have been easy for the senators to ride the coattails of executives, they were at least on the same page as far as the school year’s agenda, because they ran in the same party. Now, senators and executives will have to work across party lines to agree on objectives for the entire student body, which Davis said will aid the process more than hinder it.

“If anything, I think it’s going to make it stronger,” she said.

Robinson added that forcing the different parties to work together will make sure that what is concentrated on are the most important ideas.

“Everybody’s ultimately got the same goal in mind if they want to get involved with SGA,” Robinson said. “And in the past we’ve had Party A and Party B, and now we have Party A, B, C, D and F and it’s going to cause everybody to have to come together.”

SGA’s existing election campaign schedule is available online, with passive campaigning beginning on March 20.

Davis is optimistic about the changes.

“If everyone follows the rules the way that they’re supposed to and adheres to the timeline,” she said, “then I think it’s going to be a really great change and we’re going to see a lot of new people come in.”