At its weekly meeting yesterday, the Student Assembly announced the official results for the elections held two weeks ago.
Erica Kagan ’05, who was re-elected unopposed for her fourth year on the LGBTQ liaison seat, described this year’s elections as an improvement over last year’s process, seeing a more cooperative spirit among the candidates. She noted that many of the candidates who could have run for re-election this year did not, leading to a largely new slate of candidates.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of candidates who didn’t get elected who plan on working with the S.A. next year [on committees].”
“I think the elections were a lot cleaner than last year … I think there was an understanding that anyone who got elected would do a good job … Many of the opposing candidates are friends with each other.”
The winners of the four undesignated seats were Josh Bronstein ’05, Tim Lim ’06, Anne Marie Aponte ’06 and Kelly Robreno ’06. Each winning undesignated candidate received at least 1,000 votes. B.J. Siasoco ’07 was elected to the international liaison seat; Toby Lewis ’05 and Ashley Moore ’06 won the two minority liaison seats.
Kwame Thomison ’07, Sarah Boxer ’07 and Janelle Weinstock ’06 won the three seats designated for the College of Arts and Sciences. The winners of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences seats were Christopher Baxter ’05 and Alexandra Cox-Cuzzi ’06. Christine Batten ’06 and Iris Naomi Dulay ’06 won the seats for the College of Engineering. Ali Merali ’06 won the School of Hotel Administration seat, Michelle Fernandes ’06 won the Human Ecology seat and Melissa Kiedrowicz ’06 won the seat for the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Sarah Cassar ’06, Christina Yoon ’06, Kristen Rich ’06 and Josh Jacobs ’06 were elected to the University Assembly, a separate body from the S.A. that consists of representatives of the undergraduate, graduate, employee and professorial communities.
Results were given for all races except for the seat designated for the College of Art, Architecture and Planning. The two candidates running for the seat, Claire Fabian ’06 and Omar Nolan ’06, ended the race in an exact tie. A runoff was held from 8 a.m. Tuesday until 8 a.m. Wednesday. Unofficial results will be released this morning, and the official results will be announced at the next S.A. meeting.
Dena Ruebusch ’04, director of elections, said that this was the first year that an S.A. race ended in an exact tie.
“There is nothing in the S.A. rules dealing with what happens in the event of an exact tie, since it has never happened before,” said Ruebusch.
Fabian, one of the tied AAP candidates, discussed the implications of the runoff vote.
“I think the other candidates were frustrated too, because their [election] results were held up,” she said.
She was critical of the way the S.A. publicized the runoff vote. Posters were put up throughout AAP buildings announcing the runoff, but, according to Fabian, only about one-third of students were aware of the re-vote.
Nolan was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
Archived article by Daniel Palmadesso
Sun Staff Writer