Nearly 10 percent of students vote in 2006 election
The First Class Ticket won the vote for the UCSU Representative-at-Large elections after a full week of open polls.
The First Class Ticket, which includes four students, won the vote along with a member of the GOLD Ticket, Medhat Ahmed, to fill the fifth seat. A full week of campaigning and spreading the word provided the polls, which closed at 8 p.m. Friday night, with 2,491 voters for the UCSU election. More than 700 voted in the Arts and Sciences Student Government, according to the UCSU office.
This is more than three times the number of students who voted in last year’s fall elections, but still falls short of Fall 2004. Nearly 7,000 students voted last spring.
After a week of heavy campaigning and attempting to get students to vote, the newly elected representatives at large are pleased with the results. They are looking forward to getting started and are eager to revamp the student body and UCSU relations.
“Our main responsibility is to hear different voices,” said Ryan Hatch, a broadcast news major who is part of the First Class Ticket. “It is important to have that checks-and-balances system to have the student voices heard.”
Based on the poll results, the awareness among students of the Representative-at-Large elections were much higher than last year. Some students said the chalking, flyers and t-shirts they saw around campus inspired them to vote.
“Everywhere I went, I saw a t-shirt or something chalked onto the sidewalk when I was walking to class,” said Tony Han, a sophomore chemical engineering major. “Based on that campaigning and the stuff I read online about each ticket, I made my decision.”
The results of the election, which were posted on UCSU’s Web site on Saturday, both surprised and pleased some of the students.
“I’m not that surprised the First Class Ticket won because they are Greek. They were comfortable enough to campaign at each of the houses,” said Jackie Heinze, a junior integrative physiology major from Fort Collins. “They even brought their laptops, encouraging everyone to vote.”
While some people are pleased to have the Greek system representing a portion of UCSU, others are a little skeptical.
“I think it’s great for the Greek system, and I’m sure they are happy,” said Libby Fenstermacher, a freshman pre-journalism major. “I just wish there was a little more representation of other student groups. I hope their opinions aren’t affected by the fact they are in a sorority or fraternity.”
Though student involvement in voting has increased, the new task for the representatives at large seems to be to carry over that involvement to the operation of UCSU with the use of an open forum, Heath said.
