StuCo, Young Trustee results released
By Xiao-Bo Yuan · The Johns Hopkins News-Letter · April 22, 2004
The Board of Elections (BoE) released the results for this year's Student Council (StuCo) class elections and second StuCo presidential election early Thursday morning, announcing that candidates Soren Gandrud and Hyder Syed had tied, at 397 votes each, for the position of StuCo executive board president.
As a result of the tie, BoE co-chair Matt Bouloubasis announced that the board will hold a third Executive Board President election, although the exact date and procedure are yet to be determined.
Both Gandrud and Syed ran in the Executive Board elections held this previous March, when the BoE decided to overturn results after a series of candidate disqualifications and resignations.
"The next election is going to have to be held sometime next week," Bouloubasis said, "in order not to infringe upon finals."
According to Bouloubasis, the BoE will meet in the next few days to set a precise date. Neither Gandrud nor Syed could be reached for comment.
The BoE finished tallying preliminary numbers and write-in votes about 10 minutes before 1 a.m. on Thursday morning, after extending the original voting period by 24 hours in response to Christopher Elser's tragic death last weekend.
Earlier in the voting period, the BoE disqualified senior class presidential candidate Payal Patel, who obtained the most amount of votes for the position at 132, for violating campaign regulations. With Patel's disqualification, candidate Manu Sharma became 2005 Senior Class President-elect, with 78 votes.
According to Bouloubasis, the board disqualified Patel after learning of an e-mail sent by the JHU Peace Corps this weekend that promoted Patel's candidacy.
BoE officers interpreted the e-mail as a part of Patel's continuing campaigning efforts, and deemed it a violation of BoE rules that forbid campaigning during the voting period.
Although the e-mail was not personally sent by Patel, who denied asking for the promotion and has filed an appeal to Director of Student Involvement Jeff Groden-Thomas, the BoE voted to remove Patel from the race.
"Whether or not [Patel] sent it or somebody sent it on her behalf, she is ultimately responsible for the promotion," Bouloubasis said.
Patel declined to comment on her disqualification while her appeal was still pending approval and could not be reached for comment after the release of the results. Another '05 presidential candidate, Manu Sharma, also reported filing a personal complaint against another candidate, but declined to give details.
The 2005 senior class vice president-elect was Brian Drolet, who won with 193 votes, and Usha Saldahha won for senior class secretary with 198 votes. Both Drolet and Saldahha ran unopposed.
In a closely contested race for senior class representative in the Committee for Legislative Appointments (COLA), Stephen Popowski beat Michael Mondo by 31 votes. Other 2005 officers-elect include Russell Hayden for Legislation, Vinay Shankar for Finance, and Justin Belisario for Authorization.
In the junior class elections, Christal Ng won the position of class president after running unopposed. Dan Hughes won for vice president, Robert Huang won for secretary, and Anthony Paletta won for COLA representative. Ashlyn Schniederjans, Preeti Balakrishnan and Brian Suk garnered spots on the Legislation, Finance, and Authorization committees, respectively.
Sophomore president-elect was incumbent Jae-Jin, who won 122 votes. Ron Benjamin won for vice president, and Deepa Gandhi won for secretary, both running uncontested. Jared Ede, Rebecca Shrago, and Atin Agrawal were elected as representatives in Legislation, Finance, and Authorization, respectively.
The largest voter turnout occurred in the rising sophomore class, 33.61 percent of whom voted in the class elections. While 16.37 percent of the rising junior class voted, 24.7 percent of the rising senior class voted. A total of 889 students voted in the second executive board presidential elections, 23.96 percent of the student body.
While several candidates praised the BoE for running a smoother election this time and for better informing the student body about election-related events, other candidates still found the process lacking in coherence.
"I think this [election] was run more smoothly," StuCo Presidential candidate Hyder Syed said, "but it was still more complicated than it should have been." Sharma also had minor complaints about the elections process, but expressed an overall satisfaction with the BoE's choices during this election.
"The BoE has done their job fairly," Sharma said. "It's been really difficult because of tragic circumstances, but no one can blame them for that."
Finalists for Young Trustee were seniors Simone Chen, Dan Herr, Wen Shi, Sadena Thevarajah and Tanya Weekes.