Well another primary-round election has come and gone. Here’s the interesting things I see from the results:
– Shocker of the night: Sara Enan, a write-in candidate, managed to get more votes than Edward Tanenbaum, who was officially running unopposed. Impressive.
– Congrats to Andy Hogan, new senator for North Quad. Andy is a sophomore living in scheffries so this is kind of an upset. Andy was also the campaign manager (and secret weapon) for Adam Hughes.
– Andrew Brooks is back in the Senate as the New Senator from Ziv Quad. Congrats to Andrew.
– Nathan J Robinson and I are tied for votes (and move into the final round opposing each other) in the race for Castle Quad senator. No matter which one of us wins, I’m glad that the Castle will have a great Senator this year.
– There were very many uncompetitive races this year. No official candidates for TYP. Turnout of 17 people in Charles River. One official candidate for both East and Rosenthal Quads. One candidate for both mods and off-campus each. One official candidate in both Mods and East. Two candidates for Rosenthal and Off-Campus. No official candidate in Grad. No official candidates – or qualifying write-ins – in the Village.
In each of the elections Innermost Parts has focused on – F-Board, Senator-at -Large, President, Vice-President, and Special-Election-Vice-President, there have been fiercely contested races. Not so this time. Weird.
– Castle Quad is the exception. Nathan and I are in a tight race where every vote does count. I will crush him.
– Lastly, Adam makes a good point in the comments:
The race that really interests me now is the Class of 2012 Senate race. Section 9c of the official election rules (the section which governs winning multi-seat elections) states “In the event that a primary ballot would be identical to the final round ballot, except for the ability to write in candidates, the primary round shall count as the final round. The candidates with the most votes shall be declared the winners.” The only three candidates on the primary round ballot were Supreetha Gubbala, Akash Vadalia, and Joseph Sloman; thus, unless I’m hugely mistaken, Supreetha and Akash should be declared the winners. I think the commissioners got this one wrong.
For the Record, I beat Andrew Brooks by 2 votes in that election and was 2 votes shy of making the run off.
hm, maybe i don’t know as much about union election rules as i thought
anon–
Article IX, section 6 of the Student Union Constitution states “Abstain shall be an option on all union ballots.” There were 29 abstain votes in the final round of my race, and there have been cases in the past where abstain has beaten a ballot candidate in the final round and the seat has therefore gone unoccupied. If abstain weren’t an option on the final ballot, then there would be no reason for section 9c of the elections rules to exist, as it would never be applicable.
Usually the Union puts the election sign-up sheets out at the activities fair. Because of the special election they didn’t do that this year. The lateness of the elections (they were at least two weeks later than they’ve been in the past three years) also meant that people have already gotten involved in other clubs and may not want to give up commitments to those clubs in order to run for something they may not get.
There is also, always, an element of weariness in the second round of elections, especially when the first one seemed to turn so vitriolic. The problems with Union last year led fewer members to return, thus also decreasing the number of people running.
Side Note: I was in the freshman year race for Class of 2009 senator, and that race was also out of the ordinary, albeit on the other end of the spectrum. Usually the number is somewhere in between 3 and 13.
In response to Anon:
voting for Abstain is an option in the final rounds, see the results of the VP Final Round. The difference as noted earlier is ability to write-in candidates:
http://innermostparts.org/2008/09/18/all-hail-adam-hughes/
In response to rule 9c, there IS a difference between the primary and final round ballot–ABSTAIN. Voting for ABSTAIN is not an option in final-round elections, and since hypothetically the number of ABSTAIN votes would be enough to swing the election between the candidates, a final round is necessary.
If you couldn’t tell, I know a thing or two about election rules=)
I think the fact that there was such a dearth of candidates this cycle speaks to a few things:
– Brandeis students are super ambitious. Everyone wants to lead. Everyone wants to set the agenda. That is why it is so hard to find people to run for quad senate because people only want “glamorous positions” like on the e-board or senator-at-large.
– While the quad races seemed relatively competitive among the first-years, having only three candidates for 2012 senator is highly unusual. Usually, like 8 or 9 run. Look at the class of 2009 freshman race in comparison http://union.brandeis.edu/elections/FA05-1/classof2009#
– Students absolutely deplore the Student Union. They think everyone it is an egotistical tool, so lots of talented students think the Union “is beneath them.” Hopefully, this will change.