By Michele Richinick

In an effort to clean up some of the mistakes made during the direct elections process last year, members of the Senate Nominations and Elections Committee (SNEC) will present changes made to the direct elections manual to the Student Government Association (SGA) tonight.

The presentation will show SGA senators the changes to the direct elections manual that SNEC members have planned throughout the semester and how the changes will affect the senate and the student body, said Chris Bourne, SNEC chair and SGA parliamentarian. If there are major issues with the manual, the Senate has the power to override an SNEC decision, he said.

Bourne said the provisions to the manual are because of things that happened since direct elections began two years ago. The changes will allow the elections process to be more successful during the next few years, he said.

In June, SGA voted to eliminate its Rules Committee, the body formerly charged with tasks including running elections, legislative oversight and parliamentary procedure, and created SNEC to oversee the direct presidential elections process, according to a June 18 article in the Northeastern News.

In the article, then-SGA Vice President for Financial Affairs and current President Rob Ranley said the change was a reaction to the spring’s direct elections, which were plagued by “internal conflict.”

“I think people started to lose interest in the candidates and what they were trying to sell and [focused] more on the internal drama,” Ranley said in the article. “It turned people off.”

Last year, Ranley’s initial presidential opponent, Marines Piney, dropped out of the race only two weeks after accepting a nomination. Also, a new candidate, Dan Kamyck, initially faced removal from the race after an SGA senator put a block on his nomination, which was later overruled by the Senate. Another problem was that the Rules Committee voted twice to extend the voting period for almost a week, citing a low turnout from students, and on the first night of the second vote, Grant Oberg resigned from his position as parliamentarian.

“I think that in all aspects, it went horribly,” Ryan Fox, then-SGA vice president for Student Services-elect who served on the Rules Committee this year, said in the article. “I think there were a lot of facets. It wasn’t just the committee that caused the problems.