The overall voter turnout for the Associated Students of Madison fall election increased by nearly 50 percent from last year’s results for both freshmen Student Council representatives and Student Services Finance Committee members, leading to current representatives lauding the elect’s campaign efforts.
“Last year’s numbers were 2,035 ballots cast, which was 5.1 percent of the student body,” Student Elections Commission Chair Noah Pearce said. “This year, 3,041 votes were cast, which brings the percentage to 7.2 percent. Over 1,000 more votes this year.”
Pearce added freshmen votes for the four open freshman Student Council representative seats dramatically increased as well. Six hundred and fourteen votes were cast by freshmen last year, totaling 11 percent of the freshmen class. This year, 1,328 ballots were counted, making the freshmen voter turnout 25.1 percent of the freshmen body.
“If you look at the [breakdown of] votes for the freshmen, some of the freshmen received more overall ballots than were cast for freshmen last year altogether,” Pearce said.
The two newly elected SSFC members, Aliyya Terry and Coffey Zhang, won with 1,197 votes and 1,062 votes, respectively. Of the two, only Terry was available for comment.
“One of my main goals is to be more accessible to students. [On SSFC,] we’re not deciding our budget,” Terry said. “I’m going to get out there to students, get their opinions and understand how they feel about student services.”
The four freshmen student representatives to Student Council elected are Mario Ademaj, Maxwell John Love, Sam Peters and Jamie Bemis.
Ademaj won with 821 votes, nearly double that of Maxwell John Love at 451 votes.
“The main thing that helped me was posters. Also, I made about 2,000 flyers,” Ademaj said. “I think the fact that it got my name out there was what really helped. Also, I got permission from my professors to e-mail classes.”
Love said he ran his campaign based on his morals. He said he believes the people who voted for him voted because they knew who he was. He added he was trying to target more of the students who aren’t as represented on campus. He didn’t want to run his campaign based on issues but rather based on who he is.
Student Council Vice Chair Tom Templeton said he was pleased with the results of the elections. He added he was proud of the hard work the new freshmen representatives put into their campaigns and he is excited to work with them.
“For the results of the election, I’m really glad there’s an increase in voter turnout. There’s been more outreach, more involvement with students,” Templeton said. “I think that obviously it’s very beneficial to start at the freshman level with increased voter turnout and continue on through.”
He said the new representatives would be trained before the next Student Council meeting Oct. 28, where they would go in-depth over their responsibilities.
“Big issues for this year would be we’re working on the textbook campaign for cheaper textbooks. There’s other things like different city issues — the downtown plan and Mifflin. There’s a lot of outreach that’s required of all council members,” Templeton said.
For the ASM Spring Elections, there are 29 available seats. Elections will be held April 28.
