Five Tickets To Compete for UC Presidency, Vice Presidency

Five tickets will run in the upcoming Undergraduate Council elections, the highest number of competitors in the past six years. Of those tickets, presidential and vice presidential hopefuls Luke R. Heine ’17 and Stephen A. Turban ’17 are sophomores—a rare occurrence in a race that is typically dominated by juniors.

Potential candidates had from last Sunday to this Monday at midnight to garner 150 signatures in order to be automatically placed on the ballot.

Four tickets—Ava Nasrollahzadeh ’16  and Dhruv P. Goyal ’16, Meghamsh Kanuparthy ’16 and Ema H. Horvath ’16, Happy Yang ’16 and Faith A. Jackson ’16, and Heine and Turban, who are all running for president and vice president respectively—submitted candidate declaration forms well before the deadline.

The fifth ticket, Michael J. Landry ’16 and Connor M. Harris ’16, turned in the intention to run form only about an hour before the deadline, according to UC Election Commission Chair Matthew C. Estes ’18.

Still, Landry and Harris, like all other candidates, gathered the required signatures and will begin campaigning in about a week.

Estes described the five competing tickets as a “pretty historic” number. Last year’s election featured three pairs, and five tickets have not run in a single election since 2008, according to information from a 2013 UC report on gender parity.

Before official campaigning begins, candidates are expected to organize their supporters and attend a mandatory rules information session, the date of which has yet to be determined, Estes said.

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.