As of 6 p.m. on Monday, 12.7 percent of the student body cast their votes in the Student Association elections, said Dan Hernandez, chair of the Board of Elections and Membership.

He said that figure — which translates to fewer than 1,800 votes — is slightly lower than, but “on par with,” last year’s 13.5 percent voter turnout at the same time.

Through Thursday, students can cast their votes for SA’s next president and vice president, along with two referenda.

Duane Ford and his running mate Nia Boles want to ease the financial burden of tuition, make academic advising a work-study position and increase dialogue between different groups of students; Boris Gresely and his running mate Daniela Lopez have a three-part campaign of “reform, reconnect and redirect” to make SA more accountable to students; and Ivan Rosales and his running mate Simone Goldslager are running on a platform of improving academics, diversity and student engagement.

Hernandez said the Board of Elections and Membership exposed students to the candidates’ platforms to make informed decisions — hosting three full debates as opposed to one last year — in addition to putting on a Q-and-A session in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and having the candidates attend a Residence Hall Association meeting. He added that the first debate, which focused on greek life, was particularly successful: 150 people attended, compared to an average debate attendance of 50-80 audience members.

Hernandez said SA does as much as possible to encourage students to vote and inform them about the candidates’ platforms, but it’s ultimately up to students to vote.

There was a slight hiccup this year with the online voting system available through MySlice. Hernandez said that every year there is a delay that prevents students from voting immediately when the online voting system goes live. Normally, he said, the glitch is fixed in about five minutes, but this year students couldn’t vote for almost 20 minutes.

“The benefits, of course, are that we can reach every student, it’s the only way that we could reach every student,” Hernandez said of the online voting system. He said SA hasn’t used paper ballots in more than a decade but that all students have access to MySlice.

“I think I saw three University College votes within the first nine hours of voting, which of course is very low compared to all the other colleges, but just the fact that we can reach out to part-time students who would never see our booth or our polling station is amazing to me,” he said.

Hernandez stressed that students should be aware of the referenda on the ballot as well as the presidential candidates’ platforms. The ballot includes two referenda that allow students to choose whether the student activity fee should be frozen, and whether SA codes should be changed to redefine the roles of speaker, president and vice president.

Voting will continue throughout Thursday and end at midnight.

 

Published on November 12, 2013 at 12:36 am

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