By Christina Moran '07
Juniors David Gregg and Anna Costa will serve as next year's ASUP president and vice president, respectively, the ASUP elections committee announced late Wednesday evening. Natalie Svaren, Jovelyn Bonilla and Molly Petschl have been elected as ASUP treasurer, secretary and CPB director, respectively.
Gregg and Costa were thrilled to learn of the results.
"Dave and I are really excited to get going and learn what we need to accomplish for next year," Costa said.
Approximately 26 percent of the student body cast ballots in the elections, a decrease of more than 7 percent from the 2006 executive board elections. Of the 26 percent, 63.8 percent voted for Gregg and Costa, 29.5 percent voted for their opponents, Amy Oliveria and Alisha Fewins, and 6.7 percent wrote in candidates or declined to vote for the president and vice president positions.
Both Oliveria and Fewins plan to continue their involvement with the ASUP Senate next year.
"I'm sure that next year will be great because Anna and Dave have a lot of energy and motivation, and we have a lot of the same goals for this University," Oliveria said. "We wish Anna and Dave all the best."
Both ASUP resolutions were passed by voters.
According to current ASUP Secretary and Elections Committee chair Tara O'Boyle, the low voter turnout may be due to the fact that three of the five available positions were uncontested.
"When a position's uncontested, people are less passionate about voting because they feel like their vote doesn't matter, and it really does matter," O'Boyle said.
Candidates who run unopposed must still receive a majority vote (more than 50 percent) to be elected.
O'Boyle said that the time commitment the executive board positions demand may be one reason why many of the candidates were unopposed. Students who opt to run for executive board positions are typically already involved in numerous other leadership positions, she explained, so finding time for another commitment can be difficult.
Another possible explanation for the lack of candidates is that this year, unlike previous years, the current executive board refrained from picking out certain students they believed would be qualified for the positions and encouraging them to run.
O'Boyle said this year's executive board believed encouraging certain people to run may suggest that the officers are biased toward certain candidates, and so they opted to let the potential candidates come to them instead.
"We worked very hard to keep this a very fair election from the beginning," O'Boyle said.
Gregg believes the low number of candidates and the low voter turnout reflect feeling of apathy toward ASUP in the student body. One of his primary goals is to solicit more input and involvement from students.
"Their votes are going to be rewarded with a lot of fun and energy, and change as well," Gregg said.
Gregg was especially disappointed with the low voting turnout from the freshman class. Approximately 20 percent of freshmen voted, compared to 30.9 percent of the sophomores, 35 percent of the juniors and 23.2 percent of the seniors. Next year he plans to reach out to the freshmen and get them involved with ASUP from the beginning.
"We need to renew our commitment to the freshmen because they're the future of the University," Gregg said.
