Starting today, University of Wisconsin students have the opportunity to vote for their Associated Students of Madison representatives for the 2008-09 school year.

ASM will hold its annual spring elections April 1-3. Students will be able to vote online for their chosen candidates, as well as give their opinion on two new referenda on the ballot.

According to Student Elections Committee Chair Trenell Darby, one of the referenda added to the ballot is the Iraqi Student Project. The referendum was submitted by the Campus Antiwar Network and proposes a $1 addition to student costs to offset the tuition of five Iraqi students brought to study at UW. 

The referendum will be used only to gauge student’s support of the Iraqi Student Project, Darby said. 

“We will include this on the ballot with a disclaimer saying that this is nonbinding, meaning ASM wouldn’t have to do anything,” Darby said. “The reason it is on the ballot is to show that there is a student backing.”

The second referendum students will vote on is a change to the ASM bylaws that would no longer require the Finance Committee chair to also be a member of the Student Services Finance Committee, according to Darby. He said being part of both committees became too large a time commitment for the student serving as Finance Committee chair.

“(The referenda are used) to get student opinion on initiatives on campus and to make changes within ASM,” Darby said.

Darby said changes cannot be made to ASM’s constitution without majority support from UW students. 

There are 33 positions open on SC and three seats open on SSFC, and the positions for senior class president, vice president, treasurer and secretary are also open. According to Darby, many of the positions do not currently have candidates. 

There are currently no candidates to fill the representative seats of the Law School, School of Medicine and Public Health, or special students. 

ASM Chair, SC President and Senior Class President Gestina Sewell said there are generally two to three schools that don’t have candidates to fill the positions each year, but it gives write-in candidates an opportunity to fill those positions.

If the position is not filled by a write-in candidate, the ASM Nominations Board will fill the positions after the election through an interview process. 

“The Nominations Board would announce that there are vacant seats (on SC), and then students would have the chance to send in a cover letter and r?sum?,” Sewell said. “They will then interview those students and then their choices would go to Student Council to be decided on.”

Four students are running for senior class president, two students are running for senior vice president and one student is running for the senior class treasurer and secretary. Sewell said she would like to see the candidates who become ASM elected representatives be strong representatives of the university.

“As ASM, we are the student body representatives for the university,” Sewell said.