Elections yield an assembly of incumbents

While voting ended yesterday at 5 p.m., student government elections officially draw to a close tonight when the Nominations and Elections Committee announces results at the Fair Practices Code hearing. According to NEC Chairman Nick Goad, voter turnout for the freshman, sophomore and junior classes hovered at roughly 23 percent. Last night's figure was nearly double that of Monday night, when voter turnout had remained at around 10 percent. A 20 percent turnout is necessary to ratify the Undergraduate Assembly's constitutional revisions. The preliminary statistic does not include the senior class, with final voter turnout numbers set to be released today. This year, no candidates, NEC members or students filed FPC charges for unfair campaigning practices against any candidates or the UA constitutional revisions. In addition, none of the candidates were turned in their spending forms late. "This year's been unprecedented in terms of the number of violations we received being zero," said Goad, a Wharton senior. Traditionally, during the FPC hearing, the NEC evaluates any campaign violations brought forth. Last year, only a few campaign violations were filed. One candidate filed a campaign violation against the NEC for an incorrect Internet link to his picture, and the NEC disqualified three candidates for failing to turn in their spending forms on time. Charges in the past have ranged from violations of the FPC poster policy, which dictates where candidates can hang posters, to violations of e-mail regulations, which prohibits the use of certain listservs. "Once again, it's attributed to the candidates running a very fair election," Goad said, explaining the lack of charges this year. Thirty-one candidates ran for the 16 available College seats on the UA. Twelve of these candidates are incumbent College UA members, including current UA Secretary Dana Hork. In addition, UA College Representative Michael Esposito -- who joined the UA within the past several weeks after a College representative was removed under the UA attendance policy -- ran for a seat during this election. Two of the five candidates competing for the four available Engineering positions on the UA are incumbents. The race for the four Wharton seats included three incumbents, with eight total candidates running. The incumbent Nursing representative ran against one opponent for the lone Nursing seat on the UA. The only unopposed candidate for class president was current freshman class president Jason Levy, who ran for a position as next year's rising sophomore class president. The rising senior class failed to attract candidates for the positions of Wharton representative and vice president of corporate sponsorship. Similarly, the rising junior class lacked candidates for Engineering representative, a second College representative or vice president of corporate sponsorship.