Katie Hale is a smart woman.

Hale knows that her resume looks rather thin when placed next to that of Preston Mitchum’s, the two-term Undergraduate Student Senate candidate who is opposing her in this semester’s election for USS executive director.

So, if you’re Katie Hale, how do you give yourself a better shot of winning, given your lack of campus political experience?

Simple. Construct a Greek machine to win the election for you.

Hale is campaigning on the I.O.U. (Improve Our University) ticket along with eight other candidates. In addition to coming up with one of the stupidest acronyms of all time, every person on Hale’s ticket is aligned with a Greek fraternity or sorority. Representatives of Delta Upsilon, Sigma Nu, Delta Zeta, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Delta Gamma, Sigma Chi, Delta Tau Delta and Delta Sigma Pi are all present.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at the current system, which is full of Greek stalwarts. Executive director Ross Miltner leads a list of senators including Sean Groves, Justin Jeffrey, Amy Groya and Megan Sedello, all of whom have played giddy-up on the Greek pony all the way to their senate seats.

If you’re late to the party, here’s how USS elections typically work. Greeks work the system in order to rally several people to vote for them, regardless of their previous qualifications. In almost every circumstance, Greeks crush their opposition, often sending more worthy and qualified candidates back to the bench to try again if their heart desires.

Hale wanted the success of a Greek candidate without doling out the money and stamping Greek letters on her ass, so she’s banking on her ticket to put her into office. She’s also using incumbent Greeks Miltner and Groves, who serve as administrators in Hale’s Facebook group promoting her ticket.

Does this seem fair? Absolutely not.

Each year, a Greek-based ticket promises to change the way things are done. They want to put the students first and change this university for the better.

But it never happens. The majority Greek-incumbent sentate wasted your money, ruined your FlashFest and allowed ACPB to blow a bunch of money to bring Chingy to campus. I’m sure all of you went to that, right?

This Greek ticket is promising to advocate for your rights at Kent State, according to the group’s poorly-written mission statement on its Facebook page chock full of grammatical errors. When these people have a hard enough time maintaining simple office hours, I wonder how they’ll effectively be able to advocate for your rights.

Although the Greek machine seems difficult to overthrow, there’s a simple answer: Don’t vote for the ticket.

Mitchum’s experience speaks for itself. Although Mitchum is technically Greek, he belongs to Phi Sigma Pi – a co-ed national honor society that focuses less on toga parties and belligerent behavior than your typical fraternity or sorority.

In order to have an effective Undergraduate Student Senate, we need a campus-wide political revolution. If everybody votes, everybody wins. These elections, which start on March 14, typically have a low voter turnout, and that needs to change.

Want to see this university change for the better? Don’t vote for the ticket who thinks their Greek ties will entitle them to a senate seat – a position that will pay them with your valuable tuition money.

Ben Breier is a senior newspaper journalism major and the entertainment editor of the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].