With a wide-open field for write-in candidates, the Associated Students of Madison confirmed the results of their spring election Thursday night.

Numerous student positions were filled within ASM –the University of Wisconsin's student government — as a result of the election. And UW students' contract with the United Council — a lobbying organization of more than 20 UW System schools — was extended until 2009, as well.

With slightly less than 9 percent of the student population taking part in the election, Student Election Commission representatives said they were satisfied with the turnout.

"It was a little lower than I had hoped, but the SEC did their part to get voters," SEC Commissioner Leah Moe said. "It takes issues to drive students to the polls."

Josh Tyack, chief justice of the ASM Student Judiciary, pointed out that the spring election yielded a 3 percent increase in turnout from last fall, when ASM used paper ballots.

After programming glitches in the online system repeatedly caused the SEC to void the election results in spring 2006, ASM revamped its online voting system for this time around.

However, even with the online system, Sol Grosskopf, vice chief of the ASM Student Judiciary, said ASM could only do so much to get students to vote.

"It's clear the online system works better. We can affect the system, but we can't affect student interest," Grosskopf said. "Students themselves have to make this a success."

Gestina Sewell, who was elected senior class president with 244 votes, narrowly inched out Aleem Bakhtiar by three votes.

Sewell said she was satisfied with the online system.

"I was really excited, because I went on and it was easy to do," Sewell said. "I know some people were concerned, but it worked really well; I think the system is great."

The SEC took extra care late Thursday night to attend to the hundreds of write-in candidates during the election.

The write-in system presented an issue in the "special student" category of the student council ballot, where 12 write-ins reached a tie with one vote each. The Student Judiciary will determine a winner with a "game of chance" after a one-week appeal window.

Although not ideal, Moe said the current system allows for anyone to be elected.

"It is concerning, but no one ran for many of the open seats," Moe said. "The work load is heavy, so it's pretty traditional to not have a lot of people running."

Alex Gallagher dominated the polls for the Student Services Finance Committee — where he served in fall 2006 — with 4,655 votes. His closest competitor received only 54.

UW freshman Ashley Brown, who lost her bid to be a College of Letters and Science representative, said the opportunity was valuable, because it allowed her to meet her peers at the university.

"Win or lose, going out for a student government at any school is going to be a great experience," Brown said. "I had a great opportunity to meet a lot of students. I know this will not be the last time I try to go out for this kind of involvement around campus."

Students can log onto www.asm.wisc.edu to view the entire preliminary election results.