Reed Piercey, MCAS ’19, and Ignacio Fletcher, MCAS ’20, won this year’s election for president and executive vice president of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College on Thursday. They will hold these offices for the 2018-19 year.
Piercey and Fletcher received 1,551 votes. The opposing team, Taraun Frontis, CSOM ’19, and Aneeb Sheikh, MCAS ’20, received 1,204.
2,755 total votes were counted this year, up from 2,431 last year, and 2,592 in 2016.
Frontis and Sheikh were penalized 125 votes by the Elections Committee for negative campaigning on social media, which consisted of a comment Sheikh liked on Facebook and a comment written by someone affiliated with their campaign that constituted a character attack against Fletcher. In total, 2,880 votes were submitted.
Piercey and Fletcher are currently both senators for their respective class years in the Student Assembly. While Piercey has been involved with UGBC since freshman year, this is Fletcher’s first year in the organization. The foundation of their platform is based on three key pillars: advocacy, reliability, and engagement. At the campaign’s kickoff last week, they explained that their mission is to compel the administration to create a campus culture of “challenge and change” based on the initiatives in their platform.
“We are honored and excited to serve as next year’s UGBC President & Executive Vice President,” Piercey said in a Facebook post. “This campaign has challenged us and helped us grow as leaders in ways we have never experienced before. We look forward to incorporating the voices of students from all walks of life, especially those who most urgently need to be heard, in our vision for the organization. We are both acutely aware of the responsibility that comes with these positions, and will gladly rise to the challenge. Now the real work begins.”
Their win follows 10 days of campus-wide campaigning. Frontis and Sheikh formed their campaign around the idea of bringing the BC community together under a united goal of inclusivity. The pillars of their platform were to bring a student center to BC, diversity and inclusion, and campus improvements and sustainability.
“We want to congratulate Reed Piercey and Ignacio Fletcher on their victory,” Frontis and Sheikh said on their campaign Facebook page. “It has been an honor getting to know you all better along the way as fellow advocates of change on campus. We now put our trust in you to lead with grace and dignity. We have full faith you are capable. While we disagreed on a lot throughout this campaign, it is undeniable that we all agreed on one thing: BC should be a place everyone can feel welcomed in.”
Featured Image by Katie Genirs / Asst. Photo Editor
This article has been updated.
