StuCo Primaries Narrow Field of Exec Candidates

Uppers Joel Lotzkar and Matthew Robbins won the primary election for president of the 2016-2017 Student Council (StuCo) executive board, uppers Hojoon Kim and Brandon Liu finished at the top of the vice-presidential field and lower Jackson Parrell was elected as secretary last Tuesday. The runoff elections will take place on Tuesday, May 3, in Agora.

During last Tuesday’s assembly, each candidate gave a two-minute speech explaining their platforms and expressing why they were running for their respective position. The primary elections began after assembly and continued until 7 p.m.

Uppers Bella Edo, Alejandro Arango, Mitchell Kirsch, Nicolas Leblanc, Hannah Mackay and Emily Robb were the other presidential candidates and uppers Richard Chen, Melissa Lu, Charlotte Sununu and Jena Yun were the other vice-presidential candidates. They will not continue to the runoff elections.

A runoff election for secretary was not necessary because Lowers Taylor Walshe and Jackson Parell were the only two candidates. Parell will begin as StuCo secretary next September. He expressed his gratitude to have been voted in and looks forward to his term.

“I am surprised Nico did not continue on, considering popular polling gave a very different story in terms of voting intentions.”

“I have a good feeling about this year’s board, and I am excited to see what the future has in store,” he said. “I look forward to collaborating with the new board in the coming weeks to discuss our plans for next year.”

The remaining presidential and vice-presidential candidates now have one week to further campaign and convince students to vote for them. Lotzkar and Robbins continue to present their respective platforms and have both garnered significant amounts of support.

Lotzkar said that he hopes to increase the accessibility of academic support, boost school spirit, enhance the dining halls and continue the campus wide discussion surrounding mental health. He plans to institute these changes by introducing peer tutoring programs within dorms, starting a spirit committee in StuCo, working towards creating a “Wellness Day,” requiring new students to meet with a counselor, extending Elm Street Dining Hall’s hours and publicizing StuCo’s dining hall app.

Robbins’ platform centers around the claim that StuCo is currently “ineffective” and hopes to reform the system. He plans to cap the number of select members, students voted into StuCo by the council after they have attended meetings for a term. Select members are often called upon to vote on proposed policies. In addition, he wants to institute 11 new school-wide elected members with even more influence on policy matters. He said he would address sexual assault by proposing awareness campaigns and creating an anonymous feedback system between students and their advisors.

Liu planned on continuing the work of the current policy committee if elected as vice-president. Kim, on the other hand, will support whatever policy of change the elected president wishes to enact.

Both presidential candidates expressed excitement in regards to their success in the election’s primary stages.  “I’m very happy and thrilled to have made the runoffs as there were many good candidates with solid platform ideas. I’m thankful for the people who voted for me,” Lotzkar said.

Robbins similarly expressed shock and joy at last Tuesday’s results. “I am pretty surprised that I made the runoff,” he said. “I have the feelings of relief and happiness but also feel I have the responsibility to keep waging a good campaign based on policy,” he said. Looking onwards to the final election, Robbins said he will continue to work in the coming week to get more votes and people to support his platform.

Similarly, Lotzkar plans to spread his ideas and also encourage more studenets to get involved in the election. “The runoff will give me an opportunity to discuss my ideas in greater detail and encourage more students to vote next Tuesday.  The voter turnout was fairly low, and we need to get more people to be involved with this election,” he said.

Many students were surprised at the failure of other candadites to progress past the primaries, especially LeBlanc. Prep Taylor Robertson had expected LeBlanc’s vocal supporters to carry him through. “I was surprised by the fact Nico didn’t get the required number of votes when he had one of the most devoted fanbases,” he said. According to postgraduate Matthias Valenta, LeBlanc had found success in online polling. “I am surprised Nico did not [continue on], considering popular polling gave a very different story in terms of voting intentions,” he said. Suggesting the possibility of fraudulent results, Valenta also urged StuCo to release the results of the election. “The fact that results are not published deeply worried me...I wouldn’t put it past StuCo to falsify evidence and keep the election nice and boring,” he said.

Indeed, some controversy arose following the election due to StuCo’s continued reluctance to release vote totals. Senior Michael Shao felt that releasing the voting data would be a step towards transparency for StuCo, a topic which had been brought up several times in past elections. “StuCo can never be fully trusted and claim to be transparent until the day they fully release their election results,” he said. “If they do not do so, we have no reason to believe that results are not fabricated/have no chance of fraud or miscount.”

In response, Student Council president senior Rebecca Ju explained the reasoning behind keeping vote totals private. “It’s never been something we’ve done—as a high school club, we feel the candidates deserve some level of privacy,” she said.