At 6 a.m. today, the campaigning process for this year’s ASUW elections officially began.

Candidates are now free to campaign and spread their message to the campus population — how they do so, however, will be closely regulated by the Elections Administration Committee (EAC).

Each year, the EAC regulates the campaign, endorsement and voting process for the elections. For the upcoming election, they have also engaged in efforts to introduce more opportunities for UW students to interact with candidates.

“This year, the EAC is hosting an elections fair on the HUB lawn,” said Sean Ferris, EAC adviser.

Ferris said the fair is meant to be a mix of entertainment and education.

“It will provide candidates a chance to campaign, as well as hopefully create additional hype around elections and increase voter participation,” he said.

The EAC will also be providing students an opportunity to volunteer and help out the committee during elections week. During that time, help will be needed to run polling stations throughout campus.

“There will be five polling stations and a lot of shifts to cover,” said Shauna Stadnik, EAC chair. “We are giving out our themed elections t-shirts to those who volunteer to work for a couple hours.”

While EAC efforts to regulate the election are in full swing, the campaigns are facing an underwhelming amount of competition this year.

On Friday, filing for candidate applications ended, and out of the eight electable positions, only the positions of ASUW president and director of diversity efforts had multiple candidates running for election.

“There are 10 candidates this year, a comparably lower number than previous years,” Stadnik said. “Campaigning will still be as intense as it has been the years there have been 25-30 candidates, only now, I have a feeling more candidates will be out there trying to raise awareness of what the ASUW is and what it does. In these difficult times, where our budget is facing severe cuts, it takes a lot of gumption for students to put themselves out there and tell the student body that they will represent UW students and their interests.”

The EAC anticipates the rise of several write-in campaigns this year in response to the small pool of candidates.

“Every year, about the same number of students pick up a candidate’s packet from the Student Activities Office,” Stadnik explained. “But every year, a different number of students actually file. Sometimes, after filing results have been posted and students find out who is running for what position, some students decide to run a write-in campaign.”

Write-in candidates are still subject to all regulated campaign rules set forth in the Elections Policies and Procedures in the candidate’s packets. Violation of any such rules will result in the candidate being ineligible for acquiring the position, even in the event of victory.

Write-in candidates’ names will not appear in the voter’s guides distributed by the EAC later in the spring. Because of this, write-in candidates sometimes have a more difficult campaign.

“Of course, it is a bit harder to do because your name won’t appear on the ballot, and you have to urge students to write your name in on the ballot,” Stadnik said. “Despite all this, there have been successful write-in candidates in the past.”

Reach reporter Ivan Vukovic at news@dailyuw.com.