Students vote down referenda

Students did, however, support the first clause of the Equality Action Network (EAN)’s referendum, which stated that the undergraduate student body believes the U.S. government “should, without delay, begin to afford same-sex partners the same rights and privileges they do to partners of a different sex vis-a-vis those that flow from the recognition of a marriage.”

In 2005, a referendum urging the University to sign onto an amicus brief supporting same-sex marriage in New Jersey passed by just 82 votes. Senior elections manager Braeden Kepner-Kraus ’10, however, declined to release numbers for any of the election results but noted in an e-mail that “there were no extremely close elections.”

Jacob Candelaria ’09, founder of EAN and sponsor of its petition, said that students’ support for allowing same-sex marriage demonstrates the student body’s dedication to human rights.

He noted that because the referendum proposed by the Coalition for Intellectual Liberty (CIL) did not pass, “we keep open the notion that the University does have some responsibility to engage itself in the great political civil rights issues of our day.”

The CIL’s referendum asked the University to “refrain from creating a false impression of consensus, or imposing on those holding minority positions, by associating the University with particular points of view on disputed questions of morality, law, and policy.”

Anscombe Society public relations chair Brandon McGinley ’10 noted, however, that the defeat of the second clause of EAN’s referendum is a victory for the CIL. McGinley is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

“Of course we’re disappointed [that our referendum was voted down], but although our specific language was not supported, we are actually quite satisfied that our principle of neutrality did succeed,” McGinley said.

In addition to the referenda, undergraduates voted on a number of USG positions, though the presidency for next year was not contested.

“I’m very excited to take office and begin addressing the most pressing concerns of the student body,” USG president-elect Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 said.

Michael Weinberg ’11 defeated Nick DiBerardino ’11 to become USG vice president, according to the original results of the election. The USG Senate decided at an emergency closed executive session Tuesday night to overturn Kepner-Kraus’ decision Monday night to hold a re-vote for the vice presidential race.

Though the release of the results of the vice presidential race was delayed because of a challenge to the re-vote presented to the executive session, the outcomes of the other races were announced to the ‘Prince’ on Tuesday afternoon.

Trevor Martin ’11 was elected USG treasurer over John Monagle ’12. Undergraduate Life Committee chair Arthur Levy ’10 will remain in office, having defeated challenger Cameron Browne ’12. George Tsivin ’11 ran unopposed for campus and community affairs chair, and Ben Lund ’10 was unchallenged in his bid for re-election as academics chair.

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In addition to voting for members of the executive committee, each class selected two class senators.

Cole Morris ’10 and Christina Bortz ’10 were chosen over Stevan Cablayan ’10 to become the junior class senators.

Helen Chen ’11 and Derek Welski ’11 are the new sophomore class senators, defeating John Cappel ’11 and Vishal Chanani ’11, and replacing incumbents Tsivin and DiBerardino.

Julie Chang ’12 and Becca Lee ’12 were elected freshman class senators, winning out over fellow freshmen Robert Blatt, Leila Howard, Waqas Jafri, Andreas Sakellaris, Eleanor Meegoda, Jay Parikh, Quintilio Rose and Michael Yaroshefsky.