Voting for student elections occurred online instead of at the usual spot in the Valentine atrium. Voter turnout was virtually unaffected by this change.
There were 282 votes cast for freshman class president this year, compared to 293 votes last year and 257 votes the year before. There were also 269 votes for College Council Representative this year, compared to 287 votes last year and 213 votes in the '98-'99 elections.
"I think that if you look at the turnout of the freshman class, it was very successful," said Amy Summerville '02, the Student Government Organization's (SGO) Corresponding Secretary. "In the long run, it keeps the polls up longer and there are no lines in Valentine while people are voting."
Although there was some question as to the security of the online voting system, Ned B. Friend '01, who designed the online program, emphasized its safety.
"It shouldn't have any security problems," Friend said. "We have a list of legal voting VAX usernames, and every time there's an interaction with the server, the username and password pair are checked."
SGO President Steve Ruckman '01 also found the electronic voting system successful. "I got no negative e-mails about the election. The electronic voting system is sound," he said.
But Ruckman added that the true test of the electronic voting system will occur during the campus-wide elections in the spring. "The ultimate virtues and vices of electronic voting will be revealed in the spring election when there's a lot of hoopla," he said.
Both the freshmen and junior class presidential elections had run-off elections yesterday, but results were unavailable at press time. Run-off opponents Tom Scott-Craig '04 and Xavier Blake Sparrow '04 received 21 percent and 28 percent of the original freshmen class votes respectively. In the junior class elections, Katherine Vondy '02 received 42 percent of the first-round votes and Zeeya Jamal received 39 percent, leading to a runoff between the two.
Williams was elected to College Council with 58 percent of the vote, while Geldon won Senator-at-Large with 76 percent of the vote.
Michael G. Flood '03, with 78 percent of the student vote, won the position of Student Representative for the Committee on Priorities and Resources, a faculty-student committee charged with advising the administration on budget concern.
Geldon and Flood ran unopposed for their positions. Summerville said the percentage of votes for unopposed candidates this year compared to other years is lower because write-in candidates constitute a higher percentage with lower voter turnout for unopposed candidates. She also noted that past E-boards did not count some of the write-in candidates when votes were compiled manually.
"I look forward to working with the committee on several issues this year like the network and parking," said Flood.
Geldon said that he is excited to serve on the Student Senate, and emphasized the importance of working together. "The Student Senate addresses a lot of issues that will be important to us later, even if we don't know much about them now, and I'll do what I can to represent the Class of 2004's perspective," he said.
"The Student Senate can help represent our class on some important issues," added Geldon. "It's important that we work together as a class to bring about the changes important to us."
Williams said that he would keep his ears "permanently perked" to hear the concerns of the freshmen class.
"Despite the stress of the recent election-the effort to advertise myself, along with the suspense that came with waiting for the results, the easy part is over," said Williams. "The real challenge begins now."
Flood said that among the colleges many concerns, he would do his best to address parking issues, dorm renovation and expansion, and network issues.
Scott-Craig, in the running for freshman class president, said that he wanted, among other things, to address the internet situation and ventilate TAP by purchasing fans.
Meanwhile, Sparrow said he wants to look for TAP alternatives, offer different meal plans, and campaign for VCRs and DVD players in the common rooms.