Two thousand eight hundred eighty students voted in last week’s election for president and executive vice president of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College. The winners, Reed Piercey, MCAS ’19, and Ignacio Fletcher, MCAS ’20, received 1,551 votes, while Taraun Frontis, CSOM ’19, and Aneeb Sheikh, MCAS ’20, received 1,329 in total, but were penalized 125 votes by the Elections Committee for negative campaigning on social media.
Turnout this year, coming in at 30.7 percent of the undergraduate population, is the highest since the 2015 elections, when 3,411 votes, which represented 37.3 percent of the undergraduate student body at the time, were counted.
In total, 1,958 students in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences voted, as well as 583 from the Carroll School of Management, 225 from the Lynch School of Education, and 154 from the Connell School of Nursing.
The election presented variation between the schools’ preferred candidates. Piercey and Fletcher received 51 percent of the vote from the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences and 48 percent of the vote from the Connell School of Nursing, which was fairly close to the overall outcome. But students in the Carroll School of Management voted 70 percent for Piercey and Fletcher, while those in the Lynch School of Education voted 60 percent in favor of Frontis and Sheikh.
There was also high variation in the turnout levels between the classes. This year, 750 freshman, 988 sophomores, 665 juniors, and 515 seniors voted. That means that over 42 percent of the class of 2020 voted, followed by 31 percent of freshmen, 29 percent of juniors, and 22 percent of seniors.
Like its voter turnout, the sophomore class’ majority vote differed from other class years. Although 53.8 percent of all classes together voted for Piercey and Fletcher, the Class of 2020 swung for Piercey and Fletcher by 66.4 percent.
There was an even greater divergence between the Class of 2018 and undergraduates’ voting. 60 percent of seniors preferred Frontis and Sheikh, preferring them over Piercey and Fletcher. They were also the only class for which every school voted for the duo.
A small number of students only voted for the Students for Sexual Health referendum, which asked students whether SSH should be able to distribute contraceptives and hold meetings on campus. Students were able to answer this question on the ballot one day longer than the UGBC election, resulting in a different vote total. Ultimately, the referendum passed with 94 percent approval, 2,825 votes to 177, although the results have no required effect on University policy.
Featured Image by Katie Genirs / Asst. Photo Editor
