Many students vying for various student body offices now officially will have their names on February's ballot.
Candidates running in the student elections had to turn in the necessary signatures at 5 p.m. Tuesday to become official candidates in the race.
Nearly every candidate succeeded in accumulating enough signatures to run except for junior Haroun Habib, who had decided to run without a running mate for senior class president. Habib said Tuesday that he will pursue the post as a write-in candidate.
The Feb. 11 ballot will include four student body president candidates, five teams for senior class president and vice president, one candidate for Residence Hall Association president, one candidate for Carolina Athletic Association president, one candidate for Graduate and Professional Student Federation president and 29 candidates for Student Congress.
Signatures still must be verified by the Board of Elections before candidates are officially on the ballot. Candidates for student body president were given the petitions last Tuesday and told that a minimum of 800 signatures -- compared to last year's 500 -- needed to be collected.
The increase was a component of the Larson-Daum Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Though the candidates needed only 800 signatures, some far exceeded the amount, reaching as many as 1,200 signatures.
Among the tactics candidates used to receive signatures were friends, word of mouth, and going door to door in the campus dorms.
"We were able to accomplish the task by sheer manpower," said Ben Pickett, a student body president candidate. "We have a huge core staff and great friends who are serious about the campaign and the message I'm trying to send out."
Nathan Cherry, another of the four candidates for student body president, said having a team to help collect the signatures was beneficial. "I distributed them to campaign workers Tuesday and Wednesday night," he said. "We immediately went door to door for signatures, got our friends to help and talked to people in classes."
