In a step toward a shared goal of co-governance yesterday, Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate held elections together, hoping to increase voter turnout though both senatorial parties ran unopposed.
Morgan Allen of the unopposed AMP party won the Student Senate presidency with 193 votes; Paul Crites will be vice president and Molly McKenney will be treasurer. The total voter turnout was approximately 400 votes, said Betsy Schonebarger, the Board of Elections student chair.
Last year, 1,447 students voted'about 9 percent of the undergraduate student body. In 2004, 20 percent of students voted, making it the highest voter turnout since 1998.
The advertising for people to come out and join senate
for people to run for party for people to vote was exactly the same as the previous years
it was just that we had one party
Schonebarger said. A lot of people thought
'If I don't vote
it doesn't matter.'
AMP plans to pay closer attention to the student voice by adding another wing to the senate, Allen said.
(The wing) is only charged with doing research on student issues
focus groups and questionnaires that will be given out in order to really judge the opinions on the different kinds of issues we're tackling
she said.
Total turnout at the graduate senate elections was 37 votes, said Katie Nutter, graduate senate secretary and chair of the elections board.
The Tupperware Party won all Graduate Senate's executive offices.
Dominic Barbato, a current student senator, received 34 votes in his unopposed presidential campaign. Candace Smith won vice president for Committees and Legislative Affairs in the senate's only contested election. Kristin Delo won vice president for Administration and Finance, and Natalie Pariano won Vice President of Communications.
With the circumstances
we did a pretty good job
especially at the number of write-ins that we had
