Student Association elections broke the record number of votes since polling became available online in 2002. Students previously only voted on paper at polling stations around campus.

PJ Alampi, the Board of Elections and Membership Committee chair, said that as of 1:45 p.m. Wednesday the votes had been increasing at a rate of about 1 percent every five hours. By noon, the 22-percent mark was reached with a little more than 3,000 votes.

As of 11 p.m., the percentage reached 23.8 percent with 3,391 votes from the student body. Alampi said this was almost to the next threshold he hoped to reach after accomplishing 10 percent.

For a third day in a row, the sophomore class continued to lead in vote tallies with 1,226, followed by the freshmen with 887 and the juniors with 704. The senior class still cast the least number of votes at 572. These numbers were calculated just before the total number of votes cast was pulled.

The large showing of student involvement in this election is exciting to Alampi, who said it shows SA has actually been able to reach out to students. He said this demonstration of involvement proves that students want to take part in their campus community.

Because of the turnout, Alampi said almost one-fourth of students on campus are aware of SA. More importantly, almost one-fourth know they have the power to be heard, make change and have the ability to reach out to a representative.

rebarill@syr.edu

Published on November 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm