The Students’ Association held their elections this week, resulting in the election of four Class of 2011 Senators and eight Class of 2011 Council members. The results are, as of right now, preliminary until University IT Analyst Steven Song validates the results.
“There are generally no problems in the program for online voting, but we always check to make certain there were no glitches, as well as to verify the numbers,” Elections Chairperson and sophomore Lauren Sussman said.
On Monday, Sept. 24, following Song’s approval of the results, Speaker of the Senate and senior Sam Lehman will make the results official at that night’s Senate meeting.
According to the unofficial results, Ezra Mechaber, Dennis Nave, Dale Levine and Vincent Stilletti were elected as Class of 2011 Senators. J.J. Gonzalez, April Hu, Ahmad Rehmani, Dong Wang, Brittany Hylen, Dani Wisch, Carlos Tejeda and Danielle Parkes were chosen to be on the Freshman Class Council.
“Last year we only had nine freshmen run for Class Senate, so I was really excited to see that this year we had 14 candidates,” Sussman said. “Also, there were no write-ins for other candidates this year, which is unique, although this election in general is unique in that it is the first time we’ve ever had only the freshmen as candidates in the fall.”
This is also the first year to have four freshmen senators, as opposed to three senators.
Students’ Association President and junior Alvin Lomibao believes the increased freshmen involvement in elections points to a general upward trend in involvement on campus.
“This increase indicates that students are interested in policy change and are invested in improving their undergraduate experience,” Lomibao said.
There were many differences between last fall’s election season and this one, as a result of involving only the freshman class this year. Last fall, in addition to the freshmen class senators, six at-Large positions were also available. Senators-at-Large represent the entire student body and now are elected entirely with the spring election cycle, which allows the SA to concentrate on recruiting freshmen only in the fall.
“At-Large positions are open to students of all classes, so fall recruitment was a perennial problem,” Lomibao said. “We felt that having only one class participate this fall would facilitate our efforts to attract more candidates. Our new system also increases voter turnout by only asking students to vote once per year.”
The elections ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday, Sept. 17 to Wednesday, Sept. 19. Freshmen had the option to vote online or to use paper ballots, though only online votes were used this year. Over the course of the three days, 500 people voted, accounting for approximately 50 percent of the freshman class. The total number of votes cast was 3,420.
As in last year’s election, tables were set up during voting hours in Wilson Commons for questions and problems with online voting.
“This was a really exciting election,” Students’ Association Vice President and junior Janna Gewirtz said. “The freshman class was really enthusiastic and their eagerness to get involved shows strong potential for the future of student leadership. Student government is really excited to work with all of our new senators.”
Halusic is a member of the class of 2010.
