Call to Order: 8:50pm

Attendance: Evers, Gall, Howard, Kohl, McWeeney, Morabito, Sardinha, Straube, Taylor, Wilding (Committee)

Absent: Blewitt, Nelson (Excused)

 

Constitutional Convention (topic):

Wilding: Bill on floor, I expect conversation next week.

Morabito: Can we put out a bunch of clarifications in the office so that people can answer their questions off of the floor?

Evers: How does the President’s meeting select delegates?

Adriana: They would nominate each other

Howard: Organization representatives who are in attendance can nominate each other and speak, after which votes will be taken by ballot until three delegates have been selected. I’ll cut ballots.

Presidential agenda (topic):

Wilding: My agenda is completed, but I didn’t send it out. I contacted student governments during my office hours instead. It’s not the super detailed one; it’s an overview of what I want to accomplish. This includes what I expect from working with other student governments.

Gall: When is the meeting with the other Student Government presidents occurring?

Wilding: Probably late November, or December, or January. It will probably be at Salve Regina or in Providence. Salve Regina has offered to host.

Straube: Can other people come, or is it just for presidents?

Wilding: I will invite you all.

Howard: Please clarify that with the Presidents.

Kohl speaks.

Meetings schedule (topic):

Wilding: we need to find a time for next semester for this committee

Howard: I suggest that a When2meet be distributed

Taylor: I prefer When2meet instead of Doodle. Can it be done off-scene?

Wilding: Sure.

Midterms (topic):

Wilding: Is everybody okay? If you’re having problems, talk to me.

Voter turnout (topic):

Howard introduces, and speaks briefly about non-senators serving working at polls and on the elections committee.

Taylor: Regarding large banners, we could get one right above the main doors to the Union, but it will be harder to get them on the Quad.

Evers: We could put them on Davis Hall.

Taylor: Good idea; I hadn’t thought of that. On another note, I didn’t do too much research on Campus Labs, because Carl wants to bring in a speaker to explain it.

Howard: Do you any idea what timeline the speaker is coming in on?

Taylor: No. I can check back, and it sounds like a conversation is happening there.

McWeeney: On increasing platform word count, it can be done simply by legislation. It shouldn’t be too hard.

Howard: Please discuss with the Good 5 Cent Cigar (Cigar), because they print the platforms for free.

Evers: Are platforms online outside of the Cigar?

McWeeney: I don’t think so, but it’s an idea worth looking into.

Gall: Regarding more candidate info to be published, 75 words is too small. It should maybe stay for the Cigar, but we as a Senate can do better. I’m thinking a whole page, but however much a candidate wants to write. They can figure out what voters want to read. People tend to say more on Facebook than in their platforms.

Straube: On using HRL as a resource, Resident Advisors (RAs) do 2 programs/semester, and buildings have a lot of RAs. Some of those programs are large, and maybe we could pull some alliances and strings to get Senate involved. We also need to stop telling people that the Senate is only an hour per week commitment, because it’s not. We should further do a larger push into social media.

Morabito: On extended polling hours, all we need is volunteers. We could literally have polls until midnight. On advertising outside of election seasons, it’s a good idea. We should do it. Tell everyone who likes our programs that we exist and to join.

Kohl: On Grassroot events, there are so many organizations to do block-party style events. I think it would be easy enough, and that we should do it. Things like Beats and Eats. Who doesn’t like food trucks?

Evers: On URI 101, they are required to do a section on student involvement, and I think we could tap into the mentor team. They also have a section on voting, but not specifically us.

Gall: I think we should be mentioned in the voting section.

Wilding: I looked into online voting and how do other student governments do it. Some have their own website, but they don’t use their IT department. It’s a unique website just for the election. Others use Campus Labs, and I didn’t find equivalents with Blackboard, Sakai, or ecampus, which was interesting, and makes that look like a bit of a dead end. I will continue to explore using our website.

Howard: Could we put the voter book in a spreadsheet?

Gall: Then what happens if the internet goes down?

Wilding: What stops ballot-stuffing?

Howard: If the internet goes down, then it goes down. Honesty stops ballot-stuffing, as it does currently.

Kohl: How do we share the voter book to figure out constituencies?

Wilding: Yeah, we’d need the book unless we want to break anonymity.

Howard We make a spreadsheet, and share it to several email accounts that are unique to the election.

Taylor: We could make an absentee system, by which people write their addresses and get mailed ballots.

Gall: The elections person would check off the name and hand out the ballots on the spot.

Items not listed (topic):

Evers: With SS-18/19-33, all the clubs are weird now. They will all be simply proposed as “recognized.” That said, do the clubs recognized this year need to be on the rerecognition bill to change their recognition status?

Taylor: Bills on the floor simply don’t say funded or unfunded. Orgs already recognized are still recognized.

Gall: When is the president meeting with Dooley?

Wilding: Wednesday.

[9:17] Morabito moves to adjourn, seconded by Wilding. The motion passes (8-1-1)