USG election draws about 4,800 voters

When voting for Undergraduate Student Government closed at 8 p.m. on Thursday, 4,561 students had voted online and an estimated 100 to 200 students had filed paper ballots.

Emiko Suzuki, USG’s co-director of elections and recruitment, said when final numbers are determined this year’s total will likely be around 4,800 votes. This total is consistent with last year’s election, which brought 4,617 students to the polls.

Suzuki said the turnout met USG’s expectations.

“Usually the problem with USG is that a lot of students don’t know about it,” Suzuki said. “So I think that the fact that we got almost a fourth of the undergraduate population is a pretty impressive number.”

Despite the cancellation of USG’s carnival — typically held during the voting period to draw in voters — Suzuki and other USG officials said they had no problems raising awareness.

I think we did a very good job in getting as much publicity out there, advertising to as many people to vote and the importance of voting,” Chan said.

Chan said Tuesday’s “Rock the Vote” event was particularly successful in increasing voter turnout.

Now that voting has closed, candidates and students must wait until Tuesday for the unofficial results to be announced.

Presidential candidate Dylan Dann said this week was “exciting” and that he is anxious to hear the results.

“It’s kind of stressful with a bunch of different emotions,” Dann said. “It’s really just been an adventure.”

The unofficial results will be announced on Feb. 23, and the official results will be announced March. 2.

The unofficial results are based solely on electronic and paper votes. The official results will be announced once the candidates are determined to be in good standing with Student Affairs, have completed their budget proposals and when everything is cleared with the Elections Commission.

The lag in announcements is because of the scheduling of Senate meetings.