Amay Tewari

In a week, on April 10, Yalies will cast their ballots for student body president, vice president, events director, college senators and class council presidents. 

Voter turnout for each office and past candidates varies across colleges, positions and tickets. The News looked at trends and patterns in turnout in the last three YCC elections.

Some colleges have historically had a greater propensity to vote, and others have been less civically engaged in campus politics.

Each year, every college has the opportunity to vote for two senators to represent them in the Yale College Council.

Over the last two years, Timothy Dwight, Pierson and Silliman have consistently seen high voter turnout. Last year, Davenport College took first place in the number of votes cast by students from a single college in their senate races.

Turnout among all colleges in 2022 was distinctly lower than in later years, likely due to the social and campaigning limitations produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as uncontested races. The lowest turnout over the last three years was at Berkeley College in 2022, with a mere 26 votes cast to decide its senators. 

However, each college varies in population size, with Pierson having the largest population, around 500 students, and Trumbull having the smallest, around 400.

In the last two elections, roughly a third of all undergraduates voted in the YCC Presidential election, compared to just 9.5 percent of the student body in 2022. 

According to current YCC Vice President Esha Garg ’26, the low turnout in 2022 was likely because the winner, Leleda Beraki ’24, ran for president uncontested. Iris Li ’24, candidate for the YCC vice president, also ran uncontested that year.

Roughly the same number of students voted in the YCC vice presidential race as for a president across all three years. 

Beraki ran uncontested and secured all 615 votes for the presidency. The following year, Julian Suh-Toma ’25 received 812 votes, accounting for 37.5 percent of the total. In 2024, current Council president Mimi Papathanasopoulos ’26 garnered 712 votes, making up 35.2 percent of all casted ballots.

In the last three years, not a single candidate who ran on a solo ticket has won the offices of the president and vice president. Last year, Yale’s campus saw its most successful solo ticket candidate, with candidate Brian Zhang ’25, who was also arts editor for the News, garnering 664 votes, or 33 percent, just behind Papathanasopoulos’s 708 votes.

Elsa Holahan ’27 said she will be voting in this year’s election because she “believes in democracy.”

Selena Williams ’28, on the other hand, said she will not.

“I’m not really aware of who’s running,” Williams said. “Also, in my opinion, I try to give them grace, but the YCC doesn’t have the best rep in terms of listening to students and advocating for what they want.”

Polls for the Spring 2025 Yale College Council Election will open on Thursday, April 10, at 9 a.m. on Yale Connect.