In an election with unprecedented voter turnout, Elliott Mogul ’05 beat out opponents Edward Pritchett ’05 and Miles Hall ’05 to win the Yale College Council presidency Thursday.
Joining Mogul on the YCC executive board next year will be Nirupam Sinha ’05, who won the vice presidential election in a landslide, collecting over 70 percent of the votes. In addition, Andrew Cedar ’06 will join the board as next year’s YCC treasurer. Cedar beat Luis Perez ’05 with 65.9 percent of the vote. In the election for secretary, Lenore Estrada ’05 received 59.7 percent of the votes, beating fellow Californian and Calhoun candidate William Borden ’06.
In the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee Chair race, there was a 31 vote difference between Matthew Harsha-Strong ’06 and Chance Carlisle ’05, resulting in a run-off election to be held next Monday and Tuesday. Harsha-Strong won 29.18 percent of the vote, while Carlisle earned 27.5 percent. If no candidate captures more than 50 percent of the vote and the top two candidates are within 5 percent of each other, a runoff is held, current YCC President Andrew Allison ’04 said.
Mogul, the current UOFC chair, said he is watching the election closely because he believes it was his work as UOFC chair that gave him an edge in the elections.
“I presented really good ideas for next year, as did all the candidates,” Mogul said. “But the difference was [my ideas] were combined with a history of getting things done.”
This year, 2,307 students voted in the YCC officer elections, a 17.4 percent increase over last year’s figure of 1,965.
“It is a testament to all of you that we have the highest turnout that I’ve ever seen in an officer election,” current YCC Vice President Ryan Sheely ’04 said in an e-mail to candidates Thursday.
Mogul won the office of president with 46.2 percent of the vote. Hall received 32.2 percent of the vote, while Pritchett garnered 21.6 percent. Last year, Allison won the office with approximately 45 percent of the vote.
As president, Mogul said he will push the YCC towards improved communication with student organizations and continue Allison’s work on dining hall changes, such as extended lunch hours and late-night dining.
Vice President-elect Sinha said he will concentrate on improving student services and reforming the YCC. Sinha said he would like to start a Yale College Student Activities Committee, which would organize campus-wide social events. This would be accompanied by a Student Activities Fund, separate from the UOFC, which would finance the YSAC. Sinha said he will also work to improve the minibus system, student dining options and the relationship between residential colleges.
Cedar said he will continue his work with campus environmental policies. In addition, he said he wants the YCC to receive all its money at the beginning of the year in order to schedule student activities earlier and distance itself from the administration. But the freshman is not without priorities: Cedar also said he wants to extend the party curfew from 1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Secretary-to-be Estrada said she also wants to work to fill the gap between the YCC and the student body. In addition, she said she would like to hold weekly meetings with Yale administrators and expand the YCC’s use of the YaleStation Web site.