After a 24-hour online voting period Wednesday through Thursday, graduate students elected Heather Brooke Dagnan as the new Graduate Student Senate president.
Seven percent of graduate students voted, surpassing last year's turnout of less than 1 percent. Michael Willits, the current president of the graduate senate, said this bodes well for future elections.
Next year we'll be in the upper double digits of voter turnout
if we keep up with online voting and publicity Willits said.
Dagnan received 94 votes, beating out competitors Jeremy Valeda and Amanda Jo Hobson, with 65 and 21 votes respectively.
Willits said 180 students participated in the elections and the online voting was a success overall, with only minor glitches.
We had some issues with regards to logging in Willits said. Students were asked to click on a link on the graduate senate Web site, then prompted to give their Oak ID and password before gaining access to the ballot. Willits said some students who work full time for Ohio University and are also enrolled in graduate programs came up as ineligible because the computer considered them staff members and not students.
However, Willits said with more testing, online voting systems should be available for the undergraduate student senate elections next spring. I'm sure they'll have great success with it next year
he said.
Thirteen candidates ran for positions on the graduate senate, with all seats uncontested except for the presidency. This is a first for many years
to have three candidates running for president
Willits said. It's very exciting.
Seats for the College of Health and Human Services, the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Individual Interdisciplinary Program remain vacant. The new executive council will accept applications for these positions as soon as possible and then hold an internal election, Willits said.
Dagnan could not be reached for comment at press time yesterday.
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Jenny Bonnar
