IU Student Government is set to hold its annual congressional elections on Wednesday and Thursday. There are 212 candidates on the ballot running for 62 seats.
IUSG President Rachel Aranyi, who got her start in IUSG Congress, said that number is a record.
“This is the greatest number of people running for IUSG Congress in history,” she said. “We are really excited that some of these races will really be competitive.”
Chief of Staff Andrew Ireland said he is excited for an election cycle that looks competitive.
“It’s just really incredible to see big turnout at least as far as applications are concerned,” Ireland said. “Everything from seats that are primarily dedicated for freshman in on-campus housing to medical students.”
Before the application deadline, Aranyi and Ireland both said some professional seats, like the medical school or family housing, are sometimes harder to fill than seats like the College of Arts and Sciences.
Data released on IUSG’s Instagram shows eight graduate students and four professional students will be contesting for seats on Wednesday and Thursday. The class with the most candidates is the sophomore class, which has 73 candidates.
“We have 62 seats in total,” Ireland said. “Half of those are academic seats and half are residential.”
Academic seats are representatives from a specific school, while residential seats are representatives from a residence hall.
IUSG Congress is the legislative branch in government, and the body is responsible for most of the policy making in student government, Julianne Akard, a former press secretary for IUSG Congress, said.
“It’s explicitly designed to be a representative system,” Akard said. “Just like real Congress, they’re doing the legislating and making any policy changes that you’re hoping to see. That’s why IU in general should care.”
Posters have already started to show up on campus in support of candidates, and a coalition of 50 candidates running under the “Revive IU” flag are running on a platform to freeze tuition for four years. Revive IU made their first Instagram post Monday.
“Our team is the largest ticket to run for IU Student Government Congress in its history,” they said in a post on Instagram. “Now more than ever students at IU need an effective voice to advocate for their interests and actually achieve results.”
They list all 50 candidates endorsed under their platform on their website.
