After three elections for the same seven Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate seats, the freshman class finally has its representatives.
Freshmen Aaron Bartel, Danielle Cotter, Jon Danzig, Kate de Klerk, Tomas Garcia, Joel Greenberg and Nunu Luo emerged victorious in yesterday's vote for the Class of 2012 Senate seats.
Bartel, Cotter, de Klerk and Greenberg served on Senate this past year. Freshmen Elliott McCarthy and Manuel Guzman, who both served as senators this year, did not win reelection.
The election proceeded smoothly throughout the day with no glitches, according to Elections Commission (ECOM) Chair Adam Weldai.
"This was ... incredibly clean and functioned perfectly," said Weldai, a senior. "There was literally nothing that went wrong."
The vote was the third for the seats in eight days, as ECOM invalidated the first two immediately after voting ended in each contest.
ECOM nullified the original election, which took place last Wednesday, after receiving a complaint alleging candidates urged their peers to exploit a perceived technological glitch in the voting software and cast a second ballot.
The Commission then voided the results of the second election, held Monday, after a technological malfunction in the voting software prevented freshmen from voting for senators after 10 a.m.
Over the past few days, ECOM worked with the company behind its online voting system, Votenet, to avoid problems for yesterday's election.
"Everything was up and working perfectly," Weldai said.
Despite going through two additional contests, voter turnout remained high, with 64 percent of freshmen casting a ballot.
"I give each and every one of these candidates credit for having to deal with such a strenuous process," Weldai said. "We applaud their efforts, and we applaud the student body's efforts to continue to participate in the election process."
Meanwhile, the student body at the University of Iowa on Monday saw a student government election of theirs similarly voided due to problems with the same online voting system used at Tufts, The Daily Iowan reported on Tuesday. The elections board at that university decided to void the results of the election, pushing off the vote by a week, the newspaper reported.
Last night, outgoing TCU President Duncan Pickard said he was happy with the freshman election.
"I congratulate all of the candidates for persevering through a pretty difficult election process, and I also congratulate ECOM for the great job they did," Pickard said. "I think it's going to be a great year."
