Leverett UC Slot Filled After Revote

Ruiqi He ’19 won re-election to the Undergraduate Council after a revote Friday in Leverett House, according to Election Commission Chair Jubin Gorji ’21. The revote was needed given no candidates in Leverett reached the necessary threshold during last week’s midterm election to be declared the outright winner.

UC elections follow the Hare-Clark voting system, a ranked voting method in which each candidate must reach a certain vote quota to be elected. He, the former UC secretary, was the only candidate to declare her candidacy for the open seat in Leverett. But Benjamin I. Sorkin ’20, a former UC representative, garnered enough votes as a write-in option to prevent any candidate from reaching the threshold.

The revote saw unusually high turnout for a non-presidential UC election, with 120 students in Leverett casting ballots compared to just 57 who voted in the original election last week.

Sorkin said in an interview before the runoff that he was “peeved” another round of voting was necessary, given he outpaced He in first, second, and third place votes in the original vote count. Last week, Sorkin said he ran as a write-in after not being informed of the open seat in the House.

This year’s midterm election was the first to use the Council’s new election software. Gorji said Sunday that the Commission received no complaints about the new system this week, a stark contrast from the numerous voting issues that plagued November’s presidential elections.

Ruiqi He did not respond to request for comment.

—Staff writer Jonah S. Berger can be reached at jonah.berger@thecrimson.com.