Today undergraduates have the opportunity to vote in the third election cycle of the Spring.
These elections—which determine Duke Student Government committee vice presidents and senators—will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. The ballot will also include candidates for class presidents and vice presidents. Committee vice presidents are elected by the entire undergraduate student body, and each class will fill up to two Senate seats on each committee, in addition to the separate class elections. Although 53 candidates are running in total, the election will not fill every open seat in the Senate.
“The process has always allowed for DSG to fill those positions with at-large nominations in the fall,” said Attorney General Max Fischer-Zernin, a senior. “This [Spring] election is always prone to have more empty spots, and that’s something the DSG has dealt with in the past.”
Although voting does not formally open until 7 a.m., candidates were granted access to the ballot Monday in order to mobilize their support groups.
“We’ve given all of the candidates the Duke Groups link [to the ballot] already, the idea being that they would be able to get it out to their supporters tonight or tomorrow,” Fischer-Zernin said Monday evening.
DSG elections have struggled over the past year with voter participation. Only 38 percent of students voted in February’s Young Trustee election, compared to 2014's 53 percent. Even fewer students voted in March’s presidential and Student Organization Funding Committee chair election—with only 30 percent of students submitting ballots, down from 58 percent in 2014.
Fischer-Zernin explained that several steps have been taken to ensure that the elections get more voters than they have in the most recent elections.
“I’ll be putting stuff on Facebook and Yik-Yak, and also in the individual class year groups on Facebook,” Fischer-Zernin said. “Hopefully we can get the posts on Yik-Yak upvoted.”
Because of the large number of positions with races going on, no parts of the ballot will be required. For example, rising sophomores will have a ballot with 15 options, but they will be able to pick and choose what parts of the ballot to fill out.
“I do not expect people to vote on every single issue as they had to in past elections where the entire ballot was mandatory,” Fischer-Zernin said. “To make it easier for students we didn’t make everything required.”
Despite the attempts to publicize and make the process easier for students, Fischer-Zernin still said he expects turn-out to range from one-third to one-half of the undergraduate student body. He did say, however, that freshmen are more likely to participate in the election, judging by the number of candidates running for sophomore positions.
Fischer-Zernin also said that despite the number of students running unopposed in committee vice presidential elections, he expects some students to use the write-in option for candidates who missed the deadline for positions. He declined to comment on which candidates or how many students he expects to use the option.
List of Candidates:
Senior class president: Nandita Singh
Senior class vice president: Ben Lee
Junior class president: Kavita Jain
Sophomore class president: Istvan Urban, John David Strickland, Thabit Pulak, Luke Duchemin, Divya Dhulipala, Reid Patton, Jack Forlines
Sophomore class vice president: Blair Horner, Alexander Doan, Amir Williams, Austin Wu, Michael Gattas
Academic affairs committee VP: Annie Adair, Tara Bansal, both sophomores
Academic affairs senator, class of 2016: Brian Hopkins
Academic affairs senator, class of 2017: Jessica Tanner, Kavita Jain
Academic affairs senator, class of 2018: Antoniu Chirnoaga, Craig Kinney, Taylor Panzer, Jonathon Gillespie, Andrew Distell
Durham and regional affairs VP: sophomore Tanner Lockhead
Durham and regional affairs senator, class of 2016: Nicholas Andrade
Durham and regional affairs senator, class of 2018: Liz Brown, Gwen Geng, John Lu, Sean Gilbert
Equity and outreach VP: sophomore Ilana Weisman
Equity and outreach senator, class of 2016: Jay Ruckelshaus, Jay Sullivan
Equity and outreach senator, class of 2018: Riyanka Ganguly, Jeremy Gottlieb, Jacqueline Monetta, Jason Rahimzadeh, Sonali Biswas
Facilities and environment VP: sophomore Michael Norwalk
Facilities and environment senator, class of 2018: Jared Katzen
Residential life VP: sophomore George Mellgard
Residential life senator, class of 2017: Zoe Bakker
Residential life senator, class of 2018: Diane Hadley, Lizzie Speed
Services VP: junior JP Lucaci
Services senator, class of 2017: Mitchell Grant
Services senator, class of 2018: Akash Patel, Lukas Gschwandtner, Dylan Gambardella, Shivani Shah, Moses Wayne
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.