Isaiah Hamilton elected DSG president, Ashley Bae to be EVP

Junior Isaiah Hamilton will be next year’s Duke Student Government president and junior Ashley Bae will be DSG executive vice president.

A total of 2155 undergraduate students cast a ballot in this year's president and EVP election, which was open from noon Wednesday to noon Thursday, wrote DSG Attorney General Nellie Sun, a senior, in a Friday morning email to The Chronicle.

DSG elections use an instant runoff voting system in which voters may rank the candidates.

Of the 2155 who submitted ballots, 2123 students voted in the presidential election. There were three rounds of vote counting due to the use of the ranked-choice voting system. In the first round of the election, junior Chase Barclay received 867 votes, Hamilton received 798 votes, and junior Robert Sprung received 350 votes. 

The election went on to a second round, in which the write-in votes were redistributed, exhausting 37 votes, according to Sun. Sprung's votes were then redistributed, exhausting 84 additional votes to reach a total 121 exhausted votes. In this final round of vote counting, Hamilton received 1006 votes and Barclay received 996 votes. 

A total of 1889 students voted in the election for EVP. In the final round of vote counting, Bae received 984 votes and Brandon Qin received 870 votes. Thirty five votes were exhausted.

Hamilton is currently president pro tempore of DSG, as well as the president of the Black Student Alliance. He aims to tackle the issues and concerns of underrepresented groups by prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion work in his platform.

Bae is currently a senator and vice president of the Services and Sustainability Committee and serves on DSG’s executive board. She hopes to demystify Duke Student Government, restore its relationships with student groups and amplify new voices to transform DSG. 

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