Few glitches, low turn-out mark YCC election

By Jill Silverman

As an exhausting election week for candidates draws to a close, the YCC announced last night that Kimberly Taylor, TC '99, won a decisive victory in the race for president. Adiya Dixon, BR '00, and Joshua Naftalis, TC '99, were also swept into office as secretary and UOFC chair, respectively. A run-off election will occur on Monday and Tuesday to fill the offices of vice-president and treasurer.

While the elections ran relatively smoothly in contrast to years past, student interest in the elections was still low, with less than 50 percent of Yalies casting their vote. Preston Hopson, SM '98, current YCC vice-president and election committee chair, said that the committee was pleased with the level of student involvement in the elections. "We were happy to get a 42.3 percent turnout, especially considering that voting was only three days this year, as opposed to five last year," Hopson said. "This is the smoothest running election in a while, no major problems, which says a lot about the candidates and their willingness to follow rules," he added.

Fiona Goodwillie, MC '98, agreed that this year's election was different from last year because of new limitations placed on postering. "We limited postering because of new postering regulations instated by the Dean's office. We wanted the campus not to get destroyed by flyers. This year students are encouraged to get their message out in more innovative ways, as opposed to relying solely on posters." Candidates expressed varied opinions concerning student interest in the election. Taylor said she was pleased with the effort put forth by the student body. "I think basically student involvement is how I won this election. There were a lot of students who worked on my behalf, and on behalf of my vision. They were not necessarily all people I knew. In fact, a lot of them I didn't know, and I didn't know that they were supporting me, but they were doing it to promote a more active YCC."

Zach Kaufman, SY '00, who now faces a tough run-off against Jeremy Fain, DC '99, for treasurer, said he also felt favorably about student's attitudes towards the election. "I think students seem pretty interested in the elections. I often saw people taking the time to look at posters and table tents. I also have a counter on the web site that I put up for my campaign, and there were a lot of hits."

Dixon, however, seemed to feel that students were only interested in the elections if they had friends who were running for office. "Definitely articles in the newspaper peaked interest, but otherwise, sometimes I thought it was just the 18 of us wrapped up in our own little convoluted circle, and no one really cared. That is one of the reasons I ran, to get more students directly involved," she said.

Fain said he believed that despite the YCC's efforts to publicize the elections, people still do not know how to vote. "I have called up everyone I know and told them how to vote. I think it's more important for me to tell people how to vote than who to vote for," he said. Fain concorded with Dixon's sentiment that students were only interested if they had a personal investment, with friends running. "A lot of people have said to me, `if I didn't know you, I wouldn't have voted at all.'"

Student opinion confirmed the low level of interest in the YCC returns. Amy Kappelman, CC '00, said that she doesn't know any of the candidates, "so it really doesn't affect me." A similar sentiment was expressed by Steve Rosenthal, PC '00, who said, "I voted, but I'm not really emotionally involved."

A few students did give the YCC credit for running a clean election free of the charges of fraud which marred last year's contests. Rebecca Morley, CC '97, said "I'm very impressed with the way the elections are being run this year, they seem to be much more organized than in the past. In general, there seems to be a much greater selection of candidates."

The extremely close races for vice-president and treasurer will result in run-off elections. Charles Rink, TC '99, finished just five votes on top of Camar Graves, BK '99. Freshman Zach Kaufmann finished 61 votes in front of Fain. Graves and Fain are the only candidates on the ELIANCE ticket, introduced this year and headed by presidential candidate Maxwell Laurans, BK '98, to survive into the second round of voting.

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