Nine tickets were approved by the GUSA Election Commission on Wednesday to run in the student association’s executive elections next month, making this year’s field the most crowded in the past six years.

The nine-way race is substantially more crowded than last year’s election, when only four tickets ran. Of the nine tickets, only presidential candidate Happy Johnson (COL ’07), running-mate Vikram Agrawal (SFS ’07), candidate Nate Wright (COL ’06) and running-mate Pravin Rajan (SFS ’07) have previous experience as members of GUSA. Johnson and Rajan are both sophomore representatives on the GUSA Assembly, Wright is the co-chair of the Assembly and Agrawal is chief of staff to GUSA President Kelley Hampton (SFS ’05) and Vice President Luis Torres (COL ’06).

Campaigning begins at midnight this Tuesday, Feb. 1, and will continue until midnight on Tuesday, Feb. 15. The election will be held the following day.

Even in its earliest stages, the election has been overshadowed by campaign law issues. This will be the first executive election since last year’s disputed contest, in which the Hampton-Torres ticket won the election but was disqualified for excessive campaign violations. After nearly two months of political wrangling, the disqualification was overturned.

In response to the electoral crisis, the GUSA Assembly adopted sweeping reforms to its election bylaws this past December. This election will be the first chance to see how effective they are in preventing future election problems.

Brian Morgenstern (COL ’05), a former GUSA President who currently sits on the Election Commission, said that all parties are optimistic that the election will run smoothly.

“We hope it will be the best run election for GUSA,” orgenstern said.

One of the more contentious points of the new bylaws is the removal of the fines system for campaign violations. Under the new bylaws, candidates are disqualified for violating election law even once.

The presence of nine tickets in the race, each with its own staff, may also present a challenge to the Election Commission’s ability to effectively enforce the bylaws.

“It will certainly be a challenge,” Morgenstern said.

Morgenstern also waved off concerns that mass disqualifications could result from the new regulations, possibly leading to a contentious appeals process. He said that the bylaws are less ambiguous and more clear-cut than they were last year. He also said that all of the eligible candidates were able to gain a good understanding of the rules at a special bylaw informational session held by the Election Commission.

Ultimately, though, Morgenstern said that the only way to know how effective the new bylaws are is to see them in practice, and a final judgment of the new procedures must wait until after the election.

The new bylaws were also intended to bring more students into the election process and engage the student body to a greater degree, he said.

While this election has indeed attracted more candidates than any in recent history, it also remains to be seen if the greater number of candidates will lead to a sharply-divided electorate.

The first component of the new bylaws that will be apparent to the student body is the extended fourteen-day campaign period, which is expected to begin with the usual burst of advertisements and campaign events throughout campus.