The University Board of Elections reported last night that a referendum amending the University Judiciary Committee Constitution passed and announced the results of Student Council and Engineering Council representative races. Voter turnout from the three schools with contested representative positions increased from eight percent in 2005 to 11 percent this year.
The referendum to the UJC Constitution passed with a majority vote of 76.8 percent. The old Article IX of the Constitution said any amendment would require a majority vote of full-time students voting. The new referendum changes this wording to require two-thirds of full-time students to vote in favor of an amendment in order for it to pass, as well as requiring at least 10 percent of all full-time students vote.
Steve Yang, chair of University Board of Elections, shared plans for future UBE efforts to clarify future referendums so students can more easily understand the implications of their vote. This is a response to voter confusion about the language of the UJC referendum.
First-year Batkhuu Dashnyam, third-year Andrea Diamond, fourth-year Ted Miller and third-year Ryan Taylor were elected as the new Student Council Arts & Sciences Representatives.
First-year Christopher Belyea and third-year Matthew White are the new Student Council Engineering Representatives.
The newly elected Student Council Commerce Representative is third-year Omer Ucer. Ucer said he was excited to become the contact person between McIntire and Student Council.
"I'll try to be available to students at all times," Ucer said.
Beth Martin and Jennifer Wilson are the new Engineering Council First Year Representatives.
The University Board of Elections used several means of advertising to make students more aware of the elections. "We definitely did step up the advertisement," Yang said.
Despite their increased advertising, Yang said he felt that turnout might have been hindered by weak publicity of the referendum, the only portion of the ballots that all students were eligible to vote on, which was not as talked about as previous years' topics of Darfur and renewable energy.
"This year, there was just a dry referendum," Yang said.
UBE member Julia Pontecorvo echoed a similar sentiment in discussing voter turnout.
"I'm still disappointed in the numbers
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