As Friday’s deadline for ASSU Special Fees petitioning approaches, student groups working to obtain the required number of signatures have been largely successful. Many have already met their goal, while others said that they were on their way.

Senior Allison Dencker, financial officer for Alternative Spring Break, said she found it easy to get 10 percent of the student body to sign her group’s petition.

“We’ve had enough signatures for a while now,” she said. “I contacted all of the trip leaders and they were all responsible for contacting their friends and all of their participants. And I also emailed the participants and asked them to encourage others to sign the petition. It was pretty easy. I think Alternative Spring Break serves a lot of students, so it wasn’t too challenging to get the needed signatures. I sent out one email.”

Sophomore Melissa Smit, financial officer for Club Sports, said that her group also easily met its goal because of its size.

“Our group size is about 1,000 participants, just within our club,” she said. “We did have a certain percentage who were grad students who couldn’t petition, but it wasn’t a problem because we just had to get everybody in our group to sign.”

Like several other financial officers, Smit found email the most effective way to gather signatures.

“I’m sending out emails to all of our clubs and having them send out emails to the houses,” she said. “We didn’t have too hard of a time for getting the numbers. We’ve had them for a while. We got all of ours pretty quickly.”

Other groups have yet to meet their quotas, though financial officers expected to obtain the needed number of signatures.

“[Jewish Student Association]’s strategy has mainly included emailing lists of individuals who might be interested in supporting our cause and spreading the word about petitioning at JSA events, in our dorms and to other student groups,” said sophomore Shaina Katz, JSA’s financial officer. “We are pleased with the results so far and feel confident that we will have the required number of signatures.”

Sophomore Bernard Fraga, financial officer for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Azltan (MEChA), expressed hope for success, even though his group experienced a crisis involving a miscalculation.

“There was a mistake made regarding how many signatures were required,” he said. “But we’re still attempting to get the required number of signatures.”

The Stanford Daily still has a way to go in terms of gathering signatures. As a joint undergraduate and graduate group, The Daily must collect support from 15 percent of the entire campus student population to appear on the special fees ballot.

“We’ve got 600 signatures to go, but we have staffers who still need to turn in their signature packets,” said Daily Chief Operating Officer Brendan Marten. “So that, with a little extra effort on our part, should put us over.”

The Daily was one of a handful of groups who used paper packets for petitioning to supplement the online process.

“Without the ability to use paper packets for petitioning this year, we never would have been able to hit the approximately 2,200 that we need,” Marten said. “Online just isn’t enough on its own — two-thirds of our signatures came from paper packets.”

Groups requesting special fees for the first time, requesting more than a 10 percent increase in fees over last year or asking for more than was approved by the Undergraduate Senate and Graduate Student Council had to petition to appear on the special fees ballot. Groups enter their budget information in an online form to be evaluated by the ASSU, which then decides what aspects of the budget it will fund.

Despite the complications faced by some groups, Dencker said she found the petitioning process fair and easy.

“It was much easier for me because I didn’t have to follow around 700 people with a petition,” she said. “I think that it is fair because it allows each person in the student group to independently solicit signatures, therefore giving an advantage to student groups that [directly] impact many students.”