Raising the BAR emerged victorious Wednesday night with 1,238 votes, almost twice as many as the next slate in the Student Government (SG) elections.
Voter turnout this year increased by more than 500 votes, with 2,399 students casting ballots this year, according to Sharlene Holly, director for the Office of the Reynold’s Club and Student Activities (ORCSA). “I think it was great that more students voted this year.”
“I think SG was a little more on students’ radars this time, because of the situation with this year’s slate running out of money and the new restrictions the Election and Rules Committee instituted,” she added.
Second-year in the College and SG president-elect Robert Hubbard savored the victory: “We actually connected with people. We had solid ideas, and I think people looked at that and looked at our experience and said we can get things done,” he said.
Hubbard, who ran on The Slate That Shagged Me in last year’s election, said that experience helped him run a better campaign this time around. “Running as a first year, I didn’t really have a grasp on the pulse of the University,” he said.
Slate of the Union finished second with 662 votes, followed by This Charming Slate and Moose Party with 237 and 145, respectively.
“I wish them all the luck in the coming year, and I hope that they achieve all the lofty goals they promised in their campaign,” said third-year in the College Cameron Downing, the vice-presidential candidate for Slate of the Union.
She also said she thought the new restrictions caused the candidates to focus on one-on-one interactions with voters, and not rely so much on posters and advertising blitzes. “The candidates really had to talk to people, shake hands, and tell people about their platforms,” she said.
While she thought Raise the Bar’s plans for an improved Amandla Center were feasible, she said she did not expect them to come to fruition within a year or less. “It’s a perfect example of things that would work more slowly than students would like,” Holly said.
Third-year in the College Rush Atkinson was elected undergraduate student liaison to the Board of Trustees with 958 votes. His graduate student counterpart, GSB student Jason Bloomberg, won with 82 write-in votes.
According to current liaison Jesse Ehrenfeld, several students received write-in votes for the position. “I think it’s exciting that so many students from different divisions were nominated,” he said.
Ehrenfeld was the one who initially proposed creating separate undergraduate and graduate student liaisons. “It was difficult for me to answer questions about issues I wasn’t directly in touch with even though I was working with SG,” he said.
