By Kelly Lucas
Campus Editor

Today marks the last day the Purdue Student Government will accept additional tickets for student body president and vice president.

According to Erin Clem, election secretary, each ticket must have gotten 1,000 signatures from the student body and have declared a campaign manager by noon today.

So far, three tickets have declared they will be running for the positions. This may be due to the fact that each ticket must have a combined three semesters of PSG experience to run, according to the PSG bylaws.

According to PSG senator Michael Brown, this rule was passed last spring as a reaction to the 1997-1998 administration of James Chisholm and Jason Naunas. Prior to that ruling, any student could run for either president or vice president, regardless of whether or not they had PSG experience.

"Both of them (Chisholm and Naunas) had served less than a semester as PSG senators," he said. "Their administration was widely considered to be a disaster. They had horrible relations with the Senate and accomplished few programs."

Clem said the rule was changed to ensure all tickets had knowledge about the workings of PSG and were prepared for their positions.

However, this bylaw conflicts with the PSG constitution, which states that every Purdue student is a member of PSG.

Chris McManama and John Gerber, both juniors in the School of Management who do not have a combined three semesters of PSG experience and are running in this year's election, pointed this conflict out to PSG.

Clem said it was her decision to back McManama and Gerber, because the constitution overrides the bylaws. Clem believes the rule should be changed back to allow any student to run for president or vice president.

"I understand the reason why PSG put the bylaw into place; however, it's not going to apply to every student," said Clem. "There are some out there that have experience with other organizations other than PSG that would assist them in running for PSG."

Brown said the reasoning behind the rule was that if at least one member of a ticket had experience in PSG, they'd be better equipped to run the government.

Elections will be held on April 4, 5 and 6. All students and faculty are welcome to attend a debate on March 30 where each ticket will be presenting their platforms.

The three tickets include McManama and Gerber; Jim Vaca, a junior in the School of Management, and Patrick Mondi, a junior in the School of Technology; and Clay Slaughter, a freshman in the School of Science, and Kurt Weiand, a junior in the School of Liberal Arts.