This year’s GM Week elections showed a surge of participation, particularly in the underclass races.
Most notable was the Class of 2006 Senate race, which saw 11 candidates run initially and was the first Senate race in many years to require a primary election.
“I’ve heard of such a thing, but I’ve never seen it,” said Mary Kate DiTursi, chair of the Rules and Elections committee. “It was pretty impressive. It was a very tight race.”
The Class Council race for 2006 was also close to contention, with seven freshmen running for eight positions. “We came extremely close to having a full ballot in the class council race,” DiTursi said.
“It looks like people in our class want to be a little more involved,” said Cody Powers, who was elected to the Senate for the Class of 2006. He believes that members of his class are happy with their school and interested in making campus life better.
Fellow Senator Ghofrane Benghanem exemplifies that attitude. “I want to contribute to the Class of 2006’s presence on campus and work on issues that matter to the students,” she said.
The freshman class wasn’t the only one with a strong showing. “Even the sophomores and juniors—there was quite a bit of participation,” DiTursi said.
In addition to greater candidate participation, voter turnout in the younger classes was also up. A full half of the freshman class voted in the final elections. “The freshman class again, as they did in the fall, proved themselves to be astonishing voters,” DiTursi said.
Although the total number of voters this year was down from last year, numbers are still up significantly from a few years ago. The three previous elections were record-breaking years for voter turnout, and this year’s 1,782 valid ballots ranks high among them.
“I was expecting more,” DiTursi said. The RNE committee anticipated getting closer to last year’s total of over 1,900 ballots. “It was certainly respectable. We’ve definitely seen worse,” she said.
She also said there were fewer write-ins and ballots with the first four candidates checked simply to fill something in. “You tended to see more informed voters,” she said. “That’s always good.”
“All the candidates for the Class of 2006 campaigned a lot which helps in the voter turnout,” said Maria Valejo, one of seven Class of 2006 Senate candidates who was not elected.
Elected Senator Max Yates had a simpler explanation: “The Class of 2006 rocks; what else can I say?”
Yates also saw the trend as possibly a very good sign for the future of student government. “[If] freshmen voter turnout continues to rise, the future heights in student government will be at unprecedented levels and life at RPI will undoubtedly parallel those achievements,” he said.
DiTursi gave a lot of credit to the GM Week committee for pulling through despite the ice storms that plagued the beginning of the week. “The GM Week committee did an amazing job, with all of the weather,” she said.
