The Student Senate will announce the unofficial election results today at its meeting.

The results will be open for candidates to dispute until the seating of the new executive members and the last senate meeting on April 27; a Student Senate member has three days to report a grievance to the election commission.

Bobbie Mitchell, the director of the election commission, along with other members of the commission, will then decide if the grievance is a valid claim.

“Nothing is set in stone – if there is enough reason to investigate, then we will,” Mitchell said.

Most election investigations take about two days because most of the claims made are typically not huge issues, Mitchell said

“Depending on how the commission judges, if the claim is a violation and does not have much to do with the final vote count then we can fine the party, as long as we have taken other evidence,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said if the claim does affect the final vote count, then the commission will take steps to take those votes out.

“The election commission is basically a ‘behind-the-scenes’ group that makes sure everyone follows the rules,” Mitchell said.

With a new student body president being elected, Michelle Murphy, the current student body president, hopes the newly elected (student body president) will be assertive and approachable.

“They need to be able to find an equilibrium between being aggressive and inviting,” Murphy said.

Student Senate Speaker Jarrod Scherle said he believes the meeting will be tense because of the election results.

“When everyone walks out of the meeting, they’ll realize it was one of the most interesting,” Scherle said.

Also at the meeting, senate members will be nominating and voting on the “Senator of the Semester” and “Senator of the Year.”

The winners will receive a plaque at the final meeting of the year.

The senate will also be discussing nine items of old business; four of those items are budget requests for the fall 2011-spring 2012 school year.

The senate will also be approving a new registered student organization.

“All of these should be voted on, however, it doesn’t mean they won’t be tabled,” Scherle said.

Scherle said there will be projects and goals coming together at this meeting.

“People will have a lot to think about during the meeting,” Scherle said.

Erin Riedl can be reached at 581-2812 or at edriedl@eiu.edu.