The Undergraduate Assembly and class boards will contain many familiar faces next year.
Thirty-three of the 38 incumbents who ran each won seats on the two elected branches of Penn's undergraduate student government. In total there are 51 seats.
Thirty-seven percent of undergraduates voted in the elections for UA and class boards, marking a 4 percentage-point increase from last year.
Voting ended Sunday night.
"We're really excited about that number, and we hope it continues to go up in the future," said Wharton senior Eli Hoffman, Nominations and Elections Committee Vice Chairman for Elections.
The UA serves as the main voice of the student body to top University administrators and allocates over $1.5 million annually to various branches of student government.
In order to encourage students to vote, members of the NEC -- which governs student elections -- utilized some new advertising techniques this year, including ads on Facebook.com and going door-to-door in dorms.
"We tried to attack the school," NEC member and College sophomore Carrie Alexander said. "We wanted people to know the elections were going on."
Four class boards seats had no one running for them, and despite some write-in campaigns, they remain vacant. Those positions will be filled through an interview process with the new class boards.
In order to win in a write-in campaign, a candidate must receive the same number of votes that formal candidates need on their petitions to run. That number varies by position.
College freshman Noah Aptekar ran a write-in campaign for College representative on the Class of 2009 board after finding out that the positions were empty.
However, Aptekar did not receive enough write-in votes to win.
"I'll now be interviewing with the class board to make this dream come true," Aptekar said.
Most candidates did not seem alarmed by the the high number of incumbents who retained their seats.
"I take the fact that I won again this year to mean that students are happy with what I've done and with what the class board has done," said Wharton sophomore and Class of 2008 president Puneet Singh, who ran unopposed to retain his position.
Singh's goals for the upcoming year include making "Hey Day one of the best Hey Days ever" and increasing the accountability and transparency of the class board.
Wharton junior and Class of 2007 president Andrew Kaplan noted the importance of senior year and his hopes to plan great senior class events.
"Senior year is a very important year for the class to come together and to reacquaint to the school and to each other," he said.
Veteran UA members also expressed confidence in the new members who will join their boards next year.
"There weren't any other incumbents for Engineering [representative on the UA], so I'm excited to see what comes from the new members," Engineering sophomore and returning UA member Dipal Patel said.
Patel received the highest number of votes from the Engineering school and will therefore sit on the University Council as well as the UA. The UC meets monthly to discuss campus issues and includes faculty, administrators and students.
College sophomore Jason Karsh, Wharton junior Brett Thalmann and Nursing sophomore Alexandra Kotsovos received the highest number of votes for their respective schools and will also sit on the UC.
