Northern students vote to go tobacco-free

Student senate election and the new no-tobacco policy voting ended 3 p.m. Thursday at Montana State University-Northern.

In a close race, 76 students voted in favor of making Northern a tobacco-free campus and 60 voted against it.

Denise Brewer, the director of student activities at Northern, said since the vote to make the campus property tobacco-free was so close, they will take the results to Chancellor James Limbaugh to create a plan as to what to do next.

There was no competition for student senate, but three people were written in to become eligible for a senator-at-large position. To be eligible for candidacy by write-in, at least five voters must write the same person’s name on the ballot. If there is a competition, they must then have more votes than the candidate listed on the ballot. However, there were no such instances in this year’s election at the university.

A total of 144 votes were made by those eligible to do so at the university. This is 16.7 percent of the 862 eligible voters. Brewer said this percentage is comparable to last year’s turnout. Anyone who pays a student activity fee may vote.

The three write-ins for senators will be approached to see if they want to take the position or not. If they accept, they will be sworn in with the rest of the senate Wednesday.

The new 2014-15 Northern senate is: President Andrew Potter, Vice President Cory Lee Buckley, Business Manager Tayla Farar, Recreation Council Coordinator Michael Schultiez, returning Sen. Eric Neal, returning Sustainability Coordinator Joseph Vernon and returning Program Council Coordinator Sarah Peterson.