Malter, Sumariwalla to Lead WSA

Congratulations to Zach Malter ’13 on becoming the next President of the Wesleyan Student Assembly.  Malter wiped the floor with an astounding 659 votes–nearly double of the next highest vote-getter.  There were 1,202 votes for an actual candidate, so Malter claimed about 55% of the vote.  Congratulations also to Meherazade Sumariwalla’12 who did even better than Malter in the election for Vice President.  With 703 votes, she also won with a clear majority (about 65% of votes for an actual candidate).  Regardless of the winners, I’m sure every student appreciated the sincere efforts of every candidate.

Also, here are the Senior Class Officers:

• President: Siddhant Issar ’12
• Vice President: Francesca (Cella) Jones ’12
• Secretary: Daisey Perez ’12
• Treasurer: Ashley Garrett ’12

You can view the full election results on the same site you voted on, wsa.wesleyan.edu/voting.

Last year’s elections seem to have had more participation.  Micah Feiring ’11 won the presidency with 934 votes, but a total of 1,339 voted for the three real candidates.  That means Feiring won with about 70% of those who voted for an actual candidate.  Ben Firke ’12 won with 1,019 votes out of a total of 1,337 for an actual candidate (~76%). There seems to be a pattern here of the student body being in greater agreement about the Vice President than the President, but that might just be due to the larger number of candidates for President.

If there’s a loser in this election, it might just be Giant Joint.  Mr. Joint received a meager 64 votes for President and 27 for Vice President this year.  Comparably, GJ won 126 for President and 33 for Vice President last year.

I’d also like to congratulate all of our candidates for being the first batch to campaign under the new, stricter rules.  In case you aren’t familiar, the WSA passed regulations proposed by student group Democracy Matters that limited financing to $50 and placed other restrictions on campaigning.  With money and politics more separated than ever, this year what you saw should have been what you got.

Also, don’t forget that the election season isn’t over.  In fact, it’s just starting for the majority of WSA representative positions.  Polls for 2012, 2013, and 2014 class year seats open next week, and be sure to vote in those as well!