This year’s ballot shows voting increase

Jeff Fish
Journal Staff

The polls are open and the Student Government Association (SGA) is urging students to cast their votes for the 2010 fall election that will fill nine senate seats for the class of 2014 and any other empty seats.

“With this year’s e-board with new transparency and a new structure with the new senator-at-large positions, it is vital that all levels of the student government are filled,” said SGA Vice President Nick DiZoglio, 2011, referring to the controversial new senator-at-large positions created last year.

The controversy came from a bill that was passed at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, which called for nine senator-at-large positions instead of three. Four of them were defined as diversity seats.

That bill was lost, so it had to be rewritten, and an alternative amendment was offered allotting one diversity seat. The SGA had a heated debate over the number of diversity seats before the latter amendment was decided on.

“The 2010-2011 school year will be the first full year that these positions will be filled,” said DiZoglio. “There are 45 seats in total, including nine from each class and the nine at-large positions.”

There are ten freshmen running this year: Natalie Breen, Rachel Brown, Natalie Feinberg, Conor Finley, Sarah Fraenkel, Veto Gallo, Shannon Lazarovich, Brianna McGrath, Mariah Nolan, and Nick Ryan.

There is one junior, Allen Barrett, running for one seat.

The sophomore and senior classes both have write-in candidates for their open Senate seats.

Only two students, senior Eric Fernberg and junior Kate Connerty, are openly running write-in campaigns.

The voter turnout appears to be up from last year, according to DiZoglio. The number of votes so far from the class of 2011 has doubled from last year, and the class of 2013 already has roughly the same number of voters as last year.

So far, this year’s freshman class has the same turnout compared to that of last year. The class of 2012 can’t be compared, as this is the first year there has been an open seat, meaning there was no 2012 ballot in the fall election last year.

“More than likely, we’ll have all the seats filled this year,” said DiZoglio.

Students can vote online today until 5 p.m. The SGA sent emails to all students linking to their respective ballots.