The ballots are in, and the winners for the 2002-2003 Undergraduate Assembly and Class Boards races have been announced.
In a meeting held in Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge last night, the Nominations and Elections Committee revealed the latest crop of Penn undergraduates to fill posts on student government bodies.
Twenty-five students earned spots on the UA, while 34 went home empty-handed. The winners, elected by the 2,673 students who logged on to Penn InTouch to vote for their representatives, expressed excitement for their opportunities in the upcoming term.
Among the winners is Engineering sophomore Matt Lattman, who obtained the highest number of votes in his school.
"I'm amazed," Lattman said. "I worked really hard this year. I just wanted to come back and finish all the things I started."
The College's highest vote-getter was sophomore Jason Levy. Winnie Ting took home the most votes for the Wharton School, and Aparna Chandrasekhar did so for Nursing. These members are guaranteed one of the UA's 10 spots on the University Council -- the advisory board to the Penn's president and provost.
Other notable UA seat-winners include InterFraternity Council President Conor Daly and Penn for Peace leader Lincoln Ellis, both College juniors.
Outgoing UA Chairwoman Dana Hork expressed support for the new leaders.
"There's a lot of strength and stability in the newly elected body," Hork said. "There's a huge percentage of second- or third-year members and leaders with experience from other aspects of campus life. I expect to see great things come from this UA."
The new UA will internally select its executive body, including Hork's successor, at a meeting on April 17. College juniors Aaron Short and Seth Schreiberg, Lattman and Wharton junior Ethan Kay have announced their intent to run for the UA's top position.
But not everyone will have that opportunity. Incumbent UA members Klair Spiller, Ricky Berrin, Jordan Dubnow, Cathy Tsai and Andrew Gomez failed to earn spots on next year's assembly.
In addition to the UA, each class elected its leadership for the upcoming school year. Both the freshman and junior classes will keep their current presidents -- Matt Klapper and Billy Moore. But this year's sophomore class president, Jason Levy, lost out to former UA representative Meredith Seidel.
Before the winners were announced, Seidel expressed nervous anticipation.
"Of course I'm nervous," Seidel said. "I think it will be close. [I put in] a whole lot of work. I've postered, e-mailed... gone door-to-door, talked to my friends -- what everybody does."
Before the vote tallies could be announced, though, the NEC carried out procedures according to its Fair Practices Code.
In accordance with this code, three candidates -- Joanna Mesh, Marc Sinoway and Adam Moss -- were charged with violations of the e-mail policy. The policy states that while e-mailing individuals is acceptable, no candidate or other person on behalf of a candidate may e-mail campaign-related messages to listservs of any kind.
After a series of statements made by the charged students and an NEC representative followed by a question-and-answer period, the NEC left to deliberate on the guilt or innocence of the individuals.
During the hour and a half of deliberations, the candidates -- who remained in Bodek for the duration -- began a round of yelling "NEC Sucks."
Mesh and Sinoway were found not guilty of their charges, but Moss, a sophomore, was disqualified for an e-mail sent to the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority listserve by College senior Kimberly Rittberg.
Moss said he believes "the rules are biased," and called the proceedings a "kangaroo court."
The new boards will transition before the end of the school year.
