Only two races proceeded into the single runoff process, introduced for the first time in the 2004 election season, after A.S. officials announced A.S. general election results late on April 7.
“We expect voter turnout to be very low,” said A.S. Elections Manager Tom Chapman.
In two days of voting, April 8 through April 9, independent candidate Jenn Pae will compete against Students First! contender Harish Nandagopal for the A.S. presidency. Jane Bugea and Jose Zamora will also face off to fill the second at-large position at Thurgood Marshall College.
Chapman estimates that publicity and candidates’ voter drives will bring out slightly more than nine percent of the eligible voters, or half of the participation in the general election.
Pae had 222 more votes than Nandagopal in the general elections.
“We’ve just got to get people out to vote — that’s all there is to it,” Nandagopal said about his campaigning plans for the runoff period.
After Chapman read the results of the general election at Round Table Pizza, former independent presidential candidate Steve York announced his support for Pae.
“Jenn Pae is a legitimate candidate who is full of integrity and honesty,” York said. “I’m going to throw all my support towards her, whatever little support that is.”
Unity presidential nominee Jeremy Cogan did not back either of his former opponents, though he said many on his slate would also support Pae.
Some members of the Unity slate also attended a meeting right after results were announced to work on Pae’s campaign, according to Cogan, though he said that the slate’s backing was not unanimous.
“After talking to a lot of people in my group, it looks like the appropriate thing to say [is] that a majority of the Unity candidates are in support of Jenn Pae,” Cogan said.
Second independent candidate Kris Saradpon said he was undecided.
Though no contender for A.S. commissioner of communications received more than 50 percent of the general vote, the number required to win in the regular election, Unity’s Emily Castor withdrew her candidacy an hour after learning she would face Hillary Elder of Students First! in a runoff. Finishing second in the general election, Castor trailed Elder by 140 votes.
“I feel at this point that I would like to support Hillary because I feel she is more qualified,” said Castor, stopping short of a full endorsement. “Out of the candidates that are remaining, she is the choice I that I would place above my own candidacy.”
At Thurgood Marshall College, both Bugea and Zamora tied for second place, with 198 votes each. Eric Guico, who finished in first place, automatically becomes one of the college’s at-large candidates.
Though no at-large candidates at Eleanor Roosevelt College received the plurality of votes, college election officials chose not to use the runoff system, Chapman said.
The A.S. Council voted last year to implement an instant runoff voting system in campuswide elections. Under the plan, voters would rate all candidates by preference, and if none received the majority of first-choice ratings, the arrangement would have eliminated the least popular candidates and transferred their support to the voters’ second-choice. This would continue until one candidate finally achieved the support of more than half of the voters.
However, after StudentLink programmers announced that they would not finish the IRV system in time, the council chose to allocate the last two days of the election period for a separate runoff election.
As in the general election, voters will cast ballots on StudentLink or on library walk, though the ballot will be much shorter and will fit on a single page, Chapman said.
Voting for the runoff election will end at 4 p.m. on April 9.
