Gauri Seth elected as incoming TCU President

UPDATE: The voting breakdown for the TCU presidential election was released Friday afternoon, and the article has been updated accordingly.

Junior Gauri Seth was elected to the position of Tufts Community Union (TCU) President, following all-day voting yesterday on the Student Information System (SIS) online portal, according to the Tufts Elections Commission (ECOM) Technician Ryan Hartney.

Seth, who is the first woman to be TCU President since 2002, said that she is "humbled" by the results of the election.

"My campaign team, all week, has just given me unconditional support and love, and I could not have asked for anything more," she said. "I'm so proud of the campaign we ran, and we're just getting started. And next year is going to be amazing, and I'm so, so excited."

Seth defeated opponent junior Ryan Johnson with 75 percent of the vote over Johnson's 23 percent, while 2 percent of voters chose to write-in candidates and 16 people abstained from voting, according to specific voting margins disclosed hours after the general results by sophomore ECOM chair Ania Ruiz and the ECOM board.

Hartney, a junior, explained that 1,441 students voted yesterday and added that voter turnout was at 24.95 percent, more than double the 11.65 percent voter turnout last year for outgoing TCU President Brian Tesser. This discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that last year's presidential election was uncontested, resulting in lower voter turnout than usual, Hartney said. Meanwhile, last week’s voter turnout in the general TCU elections was at 24.31 percent, with 1,404 students voting.

Both Seth and Johnson had announced their candidacies for TCU President last Thursday evening and began campaigning on their respective Facebook pages “Go for Gauri” and “Ryan Johnson for TCU President.” A forum for both candidates took place on Wednesday evening before voting opened at midnight on Thursday.