Presidential elections for Whitewater Student Government will be held online from March 20-21.

In previous years, WSG elections were held using paper ballots that were available in the University Center.

WSG Vice President John Jensen said the main motive behind the switch to online voting was increasing voter turnout.

“I think what it does is it gets [the ballots] out to more students,” Jensen said. “Elections, typically, are two days and not every student who attends UW-Whitewater is on campus or walks through the University Center every day.”

Jensen said the senate elections in the fall didn’t see much of an increase with the implementation of online voting, but he was hopeful the presidential elections this year would.

According to Jensen, giving students who aren’t on campus regularly the opportunity to vote online will increase voter turnout.

“With online voting, you get an email at 12 a.m. the day the poll opens,” Jensen said. “You can vote from the comfort of your residence.”

Any students interested in voting can go to uww.edu/join.

Tobacco ban discussion

The UW-Whitewater Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Campus Committee gave a presentation promoting their goal to have UW-Whitewater join several other campuses in Wisconsin as tobacco-free.

Michelle Bertucci, the student leader of the committee, said she expected a lot of questions, but was disappointed in how some of them were phrased, with several questions being more personal statement than actual question.

“We were worried that the student government was going to take their own opinions into the matter instead of maybe listening to what the students may want,” Bertucci said. “I think it’s great that they’re asking such hard-hitting questions, but we were hoping that maybe they’d give more support.”

Jensen said that when this committee first approached WSG, it let them know it already had an important piece of legislation passed concerning the topic.

“The stance is that WSG believes students have the right to choose and that student government does not support banning the use of tobacco products on campus,” Jensen said.

Bertucci said her committee still wanted to come in and speak regardless of the legislation.

“Coming in we felt great,” Bertucci said. “We prepared our best, but I think that towards the end, it just didn’t feel like we had a lot of support. We’re open for as much feedback as we can get. We know what we stand for, and we’re just hoping WSG understands the health of their campus community is important.”

Jensen said there were still a lot of unanswered questions regarding a smoking ban and that right now wasn’t the time to go about doing it.

“I think that the way the senate sees it, and the way that I personally see it, is it’s a choice issue,” Jensen said. “I don’t think it’s the universities place to ensure healthy students. I think it’s the universities job to make a safe learning environment for us.”

Even with the negative reaction, Bertucci said she was still going to remain positive.

“There’s going to be people in the campus community and even outside the community who are going to be against this ban, which we understand,” Bertucci said. “We’re fully prepared to hear their voice, but we’re also helping those who do want this. We’re speaking on behalf of them as well.”