The University of Alabama has yet to release the names of the five members of the homecoming court in the first election cycle with the new homecoming queen election process. 

According to the original timeline on the homecoming website, the candidates were supposed to be announced on Sept. 27 — over a week ago. The timeline was updated today after The Crimson White requested comment on the delay.  

Rosalind Moore-Miller, assistant vice president of student engagement and the chairwoman of the Homecoming Steering and Advisory Committee, said the delay was due to one of the original five candidates unexpectedly withdrawing from the election. 

“The preliminary phase of the new selection process (applications, essays and interviews) only produced four candidates because we had a candidate withdraw once the process had begun,” Moore-Miller said. “We communicated to the four qualified candidates that we were reopening the [candidate selection] process to identify a fifth qualified candidate, in keeping with the Task Force’s new selection process.” 

The current guidelines say that students will have five candidates to vote on in the general election. 

The candidates will be announced on Oct. 7. Additional timeline changes “are not anticipated,” according to Moore-Miller. 

This is the first year under new rules to elect a homecoming queen. Last year, the SGA removed itself from administering further homecoming queen elections following multiple controversial decisions by the Elections Board, along with candidate violations controversies.  

In the old homecoming queen elections process administered by the SGA Elections Board, students were able to appeal to violations, which were detailed in the Elections Manual. Under the new rules, only candidates can appeal to violations during the preliminary phase of the candidate selection, which extends to all students after the preliminary phase is completed. Additionally, the new guidelines are not clear on how the different committees running the selection and election process are held accountable when timelines or other activities do not follow the guidelines. 

Campaigning for the homecoming queen election is set to begin one week before election day, with preparatory meetings for the five candidates occurring this week, according to the timeline.