Kevin Wang (COL ‘10), along with 22 fellow students, was voted into the Student Association’s newly created Senate by popular vote on Oct. 27.
“Hopefully this new senate will have more power … to address student concerns,” Wang said. He won the most-highly contested district, New South 1-2, defeating four other opponents.
Despite new campaign rules and the change from a plurality system to instant run-off, there were no problems with the election results.
“These elections ran smoothly,” Student Association President Twister Murchison (SFS ’08) said.
The election was approved earlier this month when nearly half the student body voted in favor of the Accountability and Reform Amendment. It transferred legislative powers from the Assembly, in which each class was represented by four members, to the Senate, which is built on geographical representation. The change was intended to “[make] members more accountable to their constituents,” Murchison said.
The Senate has 35 members, more than double the number in the Assembly. A senator represents about 180-200 students, as opposed to four members speaking for an entire class.
Of the 32 on-campus districts, 23 were up for election, because representatives elected in last spring’s elections retained their seats.
Races were contested in 13 districts, seven were unopposed, and three had no candidate, although those seats were filled by write-in votes, according to the chair of the election commission, Alison Noelker (COL ‘07).
