By Melissa Werthmann, News Staff

Although the Student Government Association (SGA) president and executive vice president campaigns kicked off Tuesday, one presidential candidate still hasn’t received enough student signatures to be officially nominated.

During the SGA meeting Monday night, senators planned on nominating candidates for president and executive vice president, but none of the hopefuls had the 322 student signatures to qualify for the race at that time.

Since then, three candidates have submitted enough signatures to officially compete:  presidential candidate Peter Petrin, a junior political science major, and executive vice presidential candidates Nick Naraghi, a sophomore computer science and finance major, and Terry MacCormack, a sophomore political science and history major.

But Chris LaColla, has not produced the required 322 signatures. All signatures must include the undergraduate student’s first name, last name, Husky email, NUID number and signature or they will be considered invalid.

While SGA members still nominated two candidates for president and two for executive vice president, Elections Chair Taylor Cotter, a senior journalism major, said the nominations were provisional and gave the candidates until the first debate to get their signatures in. The debate will be held tonight at 6 p.m. on the steps of Ell Hall.

Elections take place March 26 through April 1.

Cotter said the only thing preventing the candidates from running was the number of signatures.

“All of these candidates have been approved through all channels except for the number of signatures,” she said.

During the meeting, Comptroller Anthony Golia took issue with the idea of “provisional” candidates and motioned to override the organization’s Direct Election Manual. This motion “pretty much throws out this year’s rules and uses last year’s,” Golia said. “Because no one really uses this year’s rules anyway.”

Golia, a senior political science major, said the idea of provisionally campaigning puts candidates and students at a disadvantage.

“This whole thing today really messed everything up,” he said.

Although Parliamentarian Ryan Gordon, a sophomore civil engineering major, ruled his motion out of order because the election process had already begun, Golia did not seem satisfied with giving candidates unofficial nomination.

“‘Provisionally nominated’ is just something they’ve made up today,” Golia said.

During the meeting Cotter said candidates could begin campaigning despite being only provisionally nominated. But in an email to The News, Golia said he filed an appeal with the Operational Appeals Board, which ruled candidates could only start campaigning once their signatures are in.

“They ruled that, while SGA and the Elections Chair did not follow proper procedure, in the spirit of moving forwards with campaigns, provisional nominations will be held,” Golia said in an email.

Some students said the candidates are still largely unknown to them.

Freshman Hannah DePaoli said she has not heard of any candidates yet, but would like to learn more about them.
“I want to look into it,” she said. “I don’t know how to find out about them, but I would like to.”

The candidates officially announced any running mates last night when they submitted slate declaration forms during the candidates’ briefing. Petrin, a senator for the College of Social Sciences and Humanites, will run for president with Naraghi as executive vice president. Naraghi serves as a senator for the College of Computer and Information Sciences.

After submitting their signatures Tuesday, Petrin and Naraghi began campaigning with a Twitter feed, Facebook page and website centered around the theme “Unleash Northeastern.”

The pair is advocating for better use of academic space, cheaper and more relevant textbooks and an end to SGA stipends funded by the Student Activity Fee (SAF). Both candidates voted against SGA’s proposed budget for 2012-2013, which included increased stipends for two positions paid for by the SAF.

He said the campaign is off to a good start and presents a good chance to start conversations with students.

“It’s a long election season,” he said. “We are taking our time. We don’t want to overwhelm anybody.”

Terry MacCormack, the senator for the Resident Student Association, is running for executive vice president by himself and currently serves as SGA’s chief of staff.

Chris LaColla, a member of SGA’s finance board, will be running for student body president without a running mate, provided he submits enough signatures.

Petrin said as a pair, he and Naraghi receive $500 toward campaigning, while MacCormack and LaColla receive $500 each because they are running alone, though he said he did not know where the money comes from.

Madeline Skillman, a middler international affairs major who has voted in the past, said she has noticed the “Unleash NU” chalking, but is not sure who will get her vote. She said she is interested in seeing which candidate will use students’ money in the most responsible way.

“I think it’s important when the candidate is most proactive about where our dollars are spent,” she said.

Sophomore political science major Mishal Charania has not voted in an SGA election before. She said she would not vote on “one candidate’s persuasion,” but rather make a decision based on all candidates and the election as a whole.

“I have no idea what SGA does or what goes on,” Charania said. “So I don’t see why I should put my input in.”