The Associated Students of the University of Alaska Fairbanks will be holding its fall elections on Nov. 21, 22 and 23 (next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). The ballot includes ten seats on the ASUAF Senate, one seat on the UAF Concert Board, and a referendum dealing with tobacco sales in the Wood Center. There will also be several fill-in-the-blank questions so that voters can give the student government their input.

For most of the candidates, the election is just a formality. The concert board seat is uncontested, and only one of the Senate seats is contested (Seat P). The main event for most voters will be the tobacco referendum, which will ask students whether or not the Wood Center should continue selling cigarettes.

ASUAF President Joe Blanchard and Vice-President Dani Carlson say that the tobacco referendum is an unusual referendum issue. "This is not a question that we've heard the students asking," said Blanchard, who said that the referendum is on the ballot because "the administration approached us about it."

Blanchard and Carlson said that they have no idea what the students' consensus is on the issue, and have been unsure of how to respond to the administration's idea. "We hope a lot of people come out and make their opinion known so that we have some direction on this," said Blanchard. "We just want to represent the students' will."

In the Senate race, the one contested seat is between Tran Smythe, a math major at UAF, and Michaela Hunter, who hopes to act as a voice for the Tanana Valley Campus (TVC).

Candidates must gather 100 signatures for a petition before they are eligible to run, and Hunter said that TVC students gave her plenty of issues to bring to the Senate while she was looking for signatures. "One issue that was brought to me is that we don't get the school paper down here," Hunter said. "So I'm going to have to come up the hill to read this article." If elected, Hunter will be the sole TVC student on the Senate.

Smythe is running on a platform of increased rights for students, reduced bureaucracy, lower tuition, and a less active campus police force. "I am 100-percent Alaskan," Smythe writes in his bio.

The Senate is responsible for allocating funds from the $469,000 budget that are not taken up by permanent programs like the Concert Board, KSUA, and the Sun Star. Senators also draft and vote on regulatory bylaws, resolutions, and directives to the executive branch. "Basically, senators give up two to three hours of their Sunday afternoons," said Blanchard, "That's the only time that everybody is usually free to meet."

The 10 seats up for election represent half of the 20-seat senate. Election of the other half, as well as of the ASUAF President and Vice-President, is in the spring semester. "The fall elections usually get a lower turnout," Blanchard said. "There were about 300 voters last year, but our goal this year is 500."

Though most of the seats are uncontested, and the slate of official candidates is set, students who favor someone not on the ballot can still write in the candidate of their choice. The rules for write-ins have changed this year, however, with the addition of a seat-specific ballot. "Students who want to organize and elect a candidate not on the ballot will have to decide on a specific seat to focus on," Blanchard said.

Blanchard said that students are often quite creative with the write-in boxes. "We get some pretty weird stuff for write-ins," he said. "Curse words are not candidates."

The UAF Concert Board is a five-member group that brings entertainment to UAF. Carlson, who is a member, said that the board tries to bring up at least one big act each semester. "It's a pretty small budget, but we've brought up some pretty cool people," Carlson said. "Last year we got Chuck D from Public Enemy, and this year we've got Rob Corddry from the Daily Show."

There will also be several "poll questions" on the ballot. Carlson describes the questions as "sort of like a doctor check up; just a way for us to get some ideas and direction from students."

Blanchard stressed that the student government is always open to ideas. "We're here," he said. "If anyone is dissatisfied with something on campus, they can come in and talk to us." The ASUAF office is located in the Wood Center, next to the game center.

Carlson said that the more voters there are, the stronger ASUAF's mandate is to represent student interests to the administration. "This campus is run in a very top-heavy way," Carlson said. "A lot of administrators don't know what students think about what happens here, and a lot of them don't want to know. The student body needs to step up, and ASUAF is a great platform for that."