After students voted last Thursday, several freshmen representatives were chosen to join the Student Government Association (SGA) and College Council (CC).
The results were released last night at 8:30 p.m.
Freshmen representatives for SGA include Jon Darby, who received 117 votes; Raj Tilwa, who received 165 votes; and Sumaali Chheda with 112. College Council freshmen representatives include Sarah Choi, with 234 votes; Reuben Lack, with 125; Sheena Desai, with 122; and Doo Lee, with 191.
The elections took place yesterday online from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
After the ballot closed, the Elections Board, comprised of six students, tallied the votes through a program that Emory Information Technology (IT) provided.
According to College junior Matthew Pesce, who serves as the head of the Elections Board, the elections code – which is a series of guidelines on holding the election and calculating the votes – along with the online program has enabled the freshman voting process to run smoothly.
“It’s a pretty efficient system in the way the code is written and the way the board operates, [it] requires the least amount of student work to ensure that the elections are as transparent as possible,” Pesce said.
The freshmen candidates said they look forward to taking on their new responsibilities.
“I’m honored to have been elected from a field of fantastic candidates, and I’m excited to get started,” Lack said. “I hope to build an up-to-date College Council website, and a more transparent way of showing how we spend students’ money.”
Choi said she was also honored to be chosen and has ambitions to improve communication between student government representatives and the student body through an anonymous website.
According to Choi, the site will allow students to post their opinions about issues on campus.
“I’m just so happy and excited, and I can’t wait to start working on College Council,” Choi said, who added that another one of her goals is to obtain basic nutrition facts for food served at the Dobbs University Center (DUC).
Additionally, Choi said she hopes to distribute more funds to student groups with plans for events that specifically aim to “enhance the student life and Emory spirit.”
Darby said that as a freshman legislator, he hopes to “further Emory’s commitment to sustainability, introducing systems that enable individuals to see their personal impact on the environment.”
The only complication with this years’ election program, Pesce found, is that first-year students who come to Emory with a substantial amount of college credit are not able to vote as freshmen.
The program requires students to vote only if they maintain freshman standing.
The Elections Board corrects this problem by using the names of freshmen who contact them and manually overriding the number of credits these students have, but only in the system.
Freshmen representative elections are less stressful than the spring SGA and CC elections, according to Pesce.
The number of positions and the responsibilities for each position make the spring elections more intense for the board.
“There are no allegations of campaign misconduct and generally the environment is more relaxed,” Pesce said. “For upperclassmen, the stakes are higher.”
By Wendy Becker
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
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