News-Letter

The results for the freshman class elections were announced at the Student Council meeting Tuesday, with a turnout of 64.2 percent of freshman voters, nearly twice as high as last year's turnout.

The elections were the first held since a University-wide referendum dissolved the Board of Elections last spring after a series of elections plagued by fraud and delays.

"We ran a better election than the BoE ever could have," said StuCo Executive President Atin Agarwal, who oversaw class elections. "All it took was commitment, hard work, and good organization and planning to run a good election."

According to Agarwal, 744 freshmen cast online ballots for the class president, vice president, secretary, and senators on the finance, authorization, legislation, and leadership appointments committees on Saturday and Sunday.

Prasanna Chandrasekar won the class president election with 112 votes. The vice-president position went to Jess Buicko, who received 149 votes, while the positions of senators on the finance, authorization and leadership appointments went to Daniel Ammirato, Nick Pucci and Kate Gavin, respectively.

Due to results that were "too close to count," said Agarwal, a run-off election will be held for the senator on legislation between finalists Jeremy Batoff and Kate Jacob, set for Thursday from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.

Newly-elected class president Chandrasekar said that he hoped to make StuCo representatives more accessible to students. "My entire philosophy is that if elected, you're working for the class and nothing else. The [freshman] class is really involved and trying to take charge."

This year's turnout marked an increase in voter participation from the past five years, during which the turnout for freshman class elections averaged about 46 percent, according to News-Letter reports.

The number of candidates running this year -- 37 for seven positions -- also signaled a slight increase in participation from previous years.

"The amount of candidates is unprecedented in recent memory, and I commend the freshmen for their participation," said Director of Student Life Jeff Groden-Thomas, who provides oversight for every student election.

Agarwal attributed the success of the election to aggressive advertising on campus, as well as to the implementation of a simpler system of online voting that allows students to access the voting Web site by entering their JHED IDs and passwords.

Under the guidance of Hopkins professor and electronic-voting expert Avi Rubin, Agarwal contracted a software development and consulting company called SmartLogic Solutions to design the new voting system, accessible online at http://vote.jhu.edu.

The company was newly formed this summer by two Hopkins graduate students, Yair Flicker and John Trupiano. Flicker, who graduated with the Class of 2005, said that his own experiences with previous voting systems designed by the BoE guided SmartLogic's choice of design.

"I personally have voted in some of BoE's previous voting systems where I had to enter long numbers from my J-Card," Flicker said. "When we designed the website, we wanted it to be as simple as possible for students to use."

Flicker also said that the new voting system would avoid the pitfalls of requiring students to enter information like birthdays, which lead to the cancellation of last year's executive board and Young Trustees elections due to possible fraud. 

Several freshman voters praised the new system's simplicity. "The online system was very easy," said Rahul Agarwal, who added that the class-wide e-mail directing freshman to the voting site was the most effective form of advertisement.

However, some students found the advertising to be vague on StuCo's purpose on campus. Although he voted in the elections, freshman Pradhyumna Agaram said that he was unsure whether "the student council has much effect on campus. I don't know if they're really necessary."

Agarwal said that StuCo successes this year, including a well-attended information session and party at the HopStop, will help combat students' apathy about the council.

The class elections are also the first to be run under the new Committee on Student Elections, an independent branch of StuCo that runs student elections with the joint oversight of the StuCo executive president and Director of Student Involvement Jeff Groden-Thomas.

However, Agarwal said that the chairman of the CSE has not been appointed yet, and that for the freshman class elections the committee has been run by ad-hoc members of StuCo in the absence of permanent chairs.

"Right now, I've been basically running the committee with a lot of help from other members," Agarwal said. "We wanted to wait until after the freshman representatives were elected to have COLA [Committee on Leadership Appointments] appoint the chairs."

Agarwal said that COLA will begin distributing applications -- open to all students not currently serving on StuCo -- for CSE positions shortly after all freshman class positions have been filled. Appointed members of the CSE will then select their chair.

Although Groden-Thomas and Agarwal may voice objections to decisions of the future CSE chair, Agarwal says he plans to keep his involvement minimal.

"I want to separate myself from the process as much as possible," he said. "The next elections are going to be run entirely by the CSE."

Agarwal expressed hopes that the structure of the CSE, which operates under more oversight from administrators than did the BoE, will help StuCo move past the legacy of previous botched elections.

Groden-Thomas agreed, "it helps that we're working [with the CSE] almost from scratch. After last year's events, we know what pitfalls to avoid."

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