Associated Student Body (ASB) officer elections will take place on Tuesday, March 26. Students will vote on the ASB officer positions of president, vice president, secretary, activities commissioner and clubs commissioner.

Students will also vote for Class Council officers. This election is solely based on a popular vote. The only caveat is that class advisors have input on who becomes the class president.

“For class officers, anyone can run, even if they’re not in ASB,” Sophomore Class President and ASB member Ramiel Petros said. “The result is determined completely by a popular student vote based on class.”

However, the system for voting for ASB officers is different. ASB officers must be in the ASB class, and are not decided solely by a popular student vote. The voting system gives greater weight to the votes of students in ASB and staff judges.

“Since the elected positions have a much greater impact on the members of ASB than a typical LAHS student, we created an electoral system where the ASB class, the student body and an administrative panel would all have an influence in the outcome of our election,” ASB Assistant Treasurer Sarah Jacobs said.

The ASB candidate who receives the most of 230 delegates wins. Of these, 100 delegates are based on the student body’s votes, 100 delegates on the ASB class, and the last 30 delegates determined by a panel consisting of administrative staff and the past year’s president and vice president. Candidates get delegates proportional to the percentage of votes they receive.

There will be additional time for candidates to make speeches and answer questions from ASB members and the staff panel.
“We started a new voting process last year because we noticed that sometimes the school vote was based on popularity and not qualifications,” Senior Class Secretary and ASB member Glenda Vargas said. “Since ASB will directly work with the [person] elected, we decided to have three different components to the voting process.”

ASB members, who better know the candidates’ abilities, have been given more voting power to counteract how popularity can come into play when the entire student body votes.

“I think the system makes sense,” Ramiel said. “We get to know each other very well in ASB, and we see each other’s leadership skills. We have the chance to really get to know their goals.”

ASB believes this system puts qualifications over popularity.

“I agree with this method but it does have its flaws, as popularity can still be a factor in ASB and with the administration,” Glenda said. “But…I think overall it’s a very effective way as we pick the best of the best to lead our school the following year.”