Senator Requirements & Guidelines

General Requirements

To qualify for candidacy for a Senator position:
- One must plan on living in the residence hall he or she is elected to represent or off campus if elected to the Commuter Senator position.
- One must be currently enrolled as a full time student.
- One must hold a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.5 on a 4.0 scale.
- One must maintain full time status throughout his or her term in office unless graduating after the Spring Semester of his or her term of office in which case he or she must take at least six units during the Spring Semester.

Candidate must attend a Mandatory Election Rules Meeting on Thursday, March 20th at 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm in the A.S. conference Room.
Campaign Speech video time TBA.
Campaigning begins at 7:00 am on March 31th. Campaign materials and posters may not be put up before 7:00am on March 31st.
All campaign material must be down at 5:00 pm on April 4th when campaigning ends. Each candidate is responsible for cleaning up his/her own posters and materials

Candidates will turn in an itemized statement listing all expenses incurred in the campaign by 12:00 pm, April 4th to the A.S. Office. While a budget limit is not imposed upon candidates, this statement will ensure that candidates have used expenses reasonably during their campaign.
Campaign materials must be posted in accordance with the enclosed university posting policy. Any illegally posted materials will be confiscated and held by A.S.. Repeated offenders may, by the authority of the election committee, be considered invalid candidates and taken off the ballot.
No candidate is allowed to receive monetary contributions or use resources from any club/board from the Associated Students or from any other Biola Department.

Packets will be available in the A.S. Offices beginning March 5th during normal A.S. Office hours (8:30-5:00 Monday-Thursday and Friday 8:30-3:30). Packets must be turned into the A.S. Offices by 5:00 pm, March 20th. Packets received after 5:00 pm will be considered invalid and the prospective candidate’s name will not appear on the ballot.
A member of the A.S. staff must issue packets. Any other kind of packet is invalid.
Prospective candidates for the Senator position must secure 50 total undergrad signatures and ID numbers of Biola student body members (any student registered for six units or more).
Candidates must have the appropriate signatures as marked on the Campaign Signatures form before the petition may be returned to the A.S. Secretary. Each candidate is responsible for getting the signature of the Registrar, Director of Residence Life (Matthew Hooper), and A.S. Advisor (Eric Lapointe).
A candidate’s name will appear on the ballot exactly as it is on the packet.
The position of the candidate’s names on the ballot for a particular office will be determined by the order in which the candidate submitted his/her petition. (In a run-off election, the candidate with the highest percentage of votes in the general election will be placed first on the ballot).

Senator campaign speeches will be conducted via video during both Chapels on Monday, April 7th.
Voting will be conducted April 7th – April 8th from 10:30 am – 7:00 pm in front of the Cafeteria and Fluor Fountain.
All candidates will be called and results posted in the A.S. Office on Wednesday, April 9th by 10:00 a.m.
Candidates may not campaign in areas visible from the voting booths.

A.S. will be putting out a voter guide to aid students in the election process. Each candidate is required to submit a paragraph, no more than 150 words, summarizing their campaign platform.
A hard copy must be turned in with their registration packet as well as sent as a word attachment via BUBBS to A.S. Office Manager. President and Senior Vice President candidates will be photographed together when they turn in their packet.