Wickerson wins presidential election with 42 percent voter turnout

By Emily Abdow     2/26/19 10:12pm

Grace Wickerson will serve as the next Student Association president after beating out competitors Frederick Cavallaro and Bill Duong in an election with the lowest number of votes cast for president since 2016. 

Voter turnout for the presidential election was about 42 percent, with 1653 votes cast. Last year's presidential election, which broke the SA record for the largest number of votes cast, had a turnout of over 50 percent of the student body with 2,047 students casting a ballot. 

Wickerson, the SA Internal Vice President, captured 55 percent of the vote, 909 out of 1563, in the first round of ranked choice voting. Since they won more than 50 percent of the vote, there was no second round of voting necessary. Cavallaro earned 36 percent of the vote with 594 votes and Duong earned 6.5 percent of the vote at 108 votes. 42 votes were cast for “Other.” 

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The SA utilizes ranked-choice voting, which asks voters to rank candidates and a write-in in order of preference. Afterwards, the candidates with the lowest number of first-choice preferences is eliminated and those votes are allocated to each voter’s highest preferred remaining candidate. This process is repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes. In this year’s election, a majority occurred in the first round of voting. 

In the secretary race, the only other contested position on the SA Executive Committee, Isabel Wiatt defeated Aaron Pathak. Wiatt earned about 53 percent of the vote with 734 votes. Pathak, her opponent, earned 45 percent of the vote, or 631 votes.

The only other contested race was Honor Council Senior Representative where five candidates vied for four spots. Maheen Khizar, Stefano Romano, Grace Coleman and Natalie Zur won spots while James Suffoletta missed out on a seat. Coleman received the most votes of the candidates with 626. 

Simi Rahman won the uncontested IVP position with 95 percent of the vote and Will Mundy won the uncontested EVP position with 93 percent of the vote. Christina Lee will round out the Executive Committee, winning the uncontested race for treasurer with 95 percent of the vote.

The uncontested candidates for Thresher Editor-in-Chief, Rally Club President, RPC President, RSVP Chair, Campanile EIC, KTRU Station Manager, UCourt Chair as well as Honor Council Sophomore and Junior Representatives won their respective races. 

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