Elections May See Lowest Turnout

With polls set to close at noon today, this year’s Undergraduate Council presidential elections appear to be headed for the lowest voter turnout in the last decade. The lower turnout may favor the two outsider tickets in a race in which current Vice President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09 has been cast as the clear favorite to win the presidency.

As of 11:22 p.m. yesterday, 2,011 undergraduates had voted in the election—a figure paling in comparison to the 3,519 that had entered the polls by the end of the voting period last year. Final voting numbers for the UC presidential elections have only dipped below 3,000 twice since 1997, with the lowest turnout being the 2,462 that went to the polls in 2001.

The depressed figures are particularly notable given that the voting period this year was extended by 24 hours from last year’s.

If history is any indication, the apparent voter apathy this year may be due to the strong position of Sundquist, who is running against two tickets with no council experience. The prior voting low in 2001 coincided with the candidacy of Sujean S. Lee ’03, who was the last presidential candidate to have served as council vice president before running.

And while Lee went on to garner more than twice as many votes as the second place finisher that year, Maryellen “Mel” McGowan ’09—­campaign manager for Sundquist and running mate Randall S. Sarafa ’09—said that the lack of voter enthusiasm would likely not favor her ticket.

“I think a lot of the people who voted last year aren’t voting this year because they think Matt doesn’t need the votes,” McGowan said. “Whereas outsider candidates are really motivating people to vote who might not traditionally vote.”

McGowan said that the Sundquist-Sarafa campaign has been actively trying to address the low turnout.

“In a lot of ways our entire campaign has been about combating voter apathy rather than selling the candidates,” she said. “It was less about convincing people to vote for Matt and Randall, it was about convincing people to vote.”

Rahul Prabhakar ’09, campaign manager for the outsider pairing of Roy T. Willey IV ’09 and running mate Nicholas B. Snow ’09 also said the low voting figures were likely a boon to his ticket.

“Assuming freshmen have voted at rates that they have in the past, that would assume that there has been depressed turnout among upperclassmen—which we feel would benefit us, given that Sundquist, as the incumbent, is familiar to the upperclassmen,” Prabhakar said.

HARD TIMES

Voting trends aside, the Sundquist-Sarafa campaign almost had a little less to worry about today because of an opponent’s apparent misstep.

With the Willey-Snow coupling nearing its $400 campaign spending limit as a result of repeated e-mail and postering violations, the ticket ran the risk of being removed from the online ballot for the remainder of the voting period, James W. Anderson ’09 of the UC Election Commission told The Crimson yesterday.

But a final ruling to lessen the assessed penalties came from a late-night election commission meeting that finished after 1 a.m. today.

This morning’s decision, said Anderson, came after members of the commission ruled that the Willey-Snow campaign’s email violation had not been as willful or widespread as previously thought.

Following the election commission’s ruling, Willey criticized the opposing Sunquist-Sarafa campaign for what he perceived as their nit-picking approach to the rules—a practice which he said took away from the substance of the elections.

“It just reflects how the Willey-Snow campaign has been about violations and the Sundquist-Sarafa campaign has been about rules and procedural things,” he said.

Willey also stated yesterday that he has been disappointed by the disciplinary tone of this year’s elections.

“I think it’s a disservice to the student body to try to make the elections about rules,” he said, “and not ideas.”

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu