Although the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) presidential and vice presidential races have captured most of the attention as of late, 27 UPUA representative positions are also up for election today.

There are 13 spots with no candidates running and all but two of the rest are running unopposed.

Because of an unusual rule in the UPUA elections code, a candidate will not be elected unless an opposition candidate wins at least 250 votes. That means unless write-in campaigns are unexpectedly successful, many of the unopposed candidates will still lose.

Those positions would then be appointed by designated outside student organizations, according to the UPUA elections code.

Many representative candidates said they had contacted or planned to contact those organizations to prepare for the possibility of losing by of lack of an opponent. Most also said they had reduced their campaigning because of the lack of opposition.

"It's a different kind of campaign than you'd normally run," said freshman Pat Gordon, who is running for Division of Undergraduate Studies representative.

Elections commissioner Katie Vogel said some candidates had contacted her about write-in campaigns, but she did not have an exact count of how many were running.

The two contested races are for the Eberly College of Science representative and the Information Sciences and Technology (IST) representative.

Ryan Suto (sophomore-astronomy and astrophysics), who is running for the Eberly position, said he didn't expect to have opposition.

"I figured most science majors are relatively uninterested in politics," he said.

Suto said if he is elected, he will focus on increasing the voice of science students in UPUA and try to get a noble laureate scientist or engineer to speak as a guest lecturer on campus.

Suto said this was his first year at University Park. He transferred here from Penn State Hazleton.

Max Pell (senior-premedicine), who is running against Suto, said that if he is elected he will work with the other representatives to review the UPUA constitution and make changes if necessary.

Pell also said he supported UPUA presidential candidate Jay Chamberlin's proposal to create a special class to help teaching assistants learn to communicate better. "More than any other department, the science department needs that the most," he said.

Pell said he had worked as a peer mentor in his college and was also involved at the Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Anthony Zmoda (sophomore-IST) is running for the IST position against Pedro Huerta Granda (junior-IST).

Zmoda said he had worked on the IST student government in the past and he aimed to maintain communication between the IST student government and UPUA.

Huerta said he also hoped to increase communication between the two governments.