New elections method runs successfully

September 12, 2008 — by Albert Gu

By now, most upperclassmen are used to having class interrupted once or twice a year to vote for elections. However, this system may change soon if the election commission’s new idea works.

In the past, the commission would hand out slips of paper in manila envelopes, distribute them to every teacher and collect them all 10 minutes later, a process that was time consuming and disrupted the classroom environment.

By now, most upperclassmen are used to having class interrupted once or twice a year to vote for elections. However, this system may change soon if the election commission’s new idea works.

In the past, the commission would hand out slips of paper in manila envelopes, distribute them to every teacher and collect them all 10 minutes later, a process that was time consuming and disrupted the classroom environment.

“The teachers were starting to get annoyed because there are a lot of elections,” said elections commissioner senior Tiffany Wang. “We tried to cut down on the number of times we visited them, but toward the end of the year there were too many events.”

Because of the complaints, the commission came up with a new system. For the freshman class elections, they set up a table in the quad during lunch, open to any freshmen who wanted to vote. The students lined up by last name and showed their student IDs. Then, the person running the table would cross their names off the class list and give them a slip of paper to vote on.

The freshman elections took place on Sept. 4 and 5. Out of a freshman class of about 300, 70 voted in the preliminaries and over 150 participated in the final election. Although less people voted using the new system, the results were more accurate because only people who actually wanted a say played a part, commissioners said.

The election ran smoothly and the results came out quickly. Kayvon Revaii was voted treasurer, Vishal Goel took secretary, Peter Chen became vice president, and Anshu Siripurapu became the new freshmen class president.

“Before, people would just vote randomly like, ‘I’ve heard of this guy, I’ll vote for him’ or ‘this guy has a cool name, why don’t I vote for him’,” said senior Heraa Hyder. “Now the election has become more personal.”

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