The Student Government Association (SGA) voted Tuesday to change the order of SGA elections as a pat of a new election code, which after two hours of debate the SGA only passed part.

The major change was a stipulation that SGA officers and college presidents will be elected at the same time and college representatives will be elected in a separate later election. Previously, the SGA presidents and vice presidents were elected separately and the college presidents and representatives were elected together.

Under the old system of electing SGA members a student has to choose between running for president of his college’s representation or running as a representative. According to A&S representative Kathy Walsh, the old system eliminated by closing presidential candidates from participation in the SGA and deprived student government of valuable leadership.

The law school will be exempt from this change because of timing conflict with Student Bar Association elections. SGA elections for law school representatives will be conducted in the same way they were in the past, with races for law president and law representatives held at the same time.

Bob Rayhawk, chairman of the SGA elections committee, said that he expects the new code to be in operation for the upcoming elections. Presidential elections in the colleges will be held March 8 and 9. Sign-up dates for candidates are Feb. 25 and 26.

Rayhawk said that the old code, which is part of the SGA by-laws, had been written “piece by piece” and was recently rewritten in order to put it in a “logical order.”