Candidates, start your engines.

The general election for the Student Association, Marvin Center Governing Board and the Program Board will take place on Feb. 21 and 22, the Joint Elections Committee announced this week. If no candidate garners more than half of the vote, a runoff will occur March 1. The dates are a month earlier than they were last year.

Sophomore Laura Bentele, the chair of the JEC, said the election oversight-body reviewed “information, time and resources” to allow for an “efficient and comprehensive election.”

“In choosing our election date, our highest priority was to organize a smooth, open and fair election while taking into consideration what time-lines were feasible,” Bentele said. “We also tried to work through the concerns of MCGB, PB and the SA as they were expressed to us.”

Some of the presidential candidates, including juniors Marc Abanto and Casey Pond, said that they would have appreciated more time to prepare and earlier notification of the election date. Last year’s election was held on March 30.

“I wish I would have received more of a warning, but it will be nice to get election over before Spring Break,” Pond said.

Junior Chris Rotella, who is running for SA executive vice president, said he is not concerned about the election date. “I don’t think the election date matters,” Rotella said. “Regardless of the time spent campaigning, students will still know who is qualified.”

The five-person JEC also decided on the positions of its members. In addition to electing Bentele as the chair, senior Morgan Corr was chosen as the vice-chair, junior Riki Parikh as the secretary, junior Alex Scott as their ballot counter and senior Michael Tarantino as their poll coordinator, according to an e-mail from the JEC.

The JEC launched www.gwelection.com which currently includes the JEC charter and information on future meetings, will soon include candidate and voter information along with other JEC documents.