Fisch ’11 loses Borough Council election

As the two candidates with the most votes in the Democratic primary, Crumiller and Wilkes have effectively won seats on the council, as they will run unopposed on the general election ballot in November.

Incumbent councilwoman Margaret Karcher, who had been the fourth candidate in the primary, ended her campaign in April as she continued to undergo rehabilitation following surgery to remove a benign spinal cord tumor, The Princeton Packet reported.

Fisch, who is also a senior writer for The Daily Princetonian, launched his campaign in March, pledging to represent the student community on the council. During his campaign, he focused on the Borough’s prosecution of the eating clubs, alcohol amnesty policies and student-voter disenfranchisement.

Fisch said his campaign assisted more than 400 students in requesting absentee ballots for the election, but in the end only half of them were turned in. He attributed the low turnout from absentee voters to the end of the University’s academic year and final exams. More than half of Fisch’s votes came from absentee ballots. He received 206 absentee votes, while Wilkes and Crumiller received 11 and 31, respectively.

“I wish more students had sent in their absentee ballots,” he said. “It came at a time when everyone was leaving. They got here the end of the first week, beginning of the second week of exams. We had 200 more absentee ballots that weren’t sent in.”

Fisch added that his opponents may have changed their strategy and increased campaigning activity when they learned of how many absentee ballots had been requested by University students.

“I think the county clerk alerted them to the fact that there were a lot of absentee ballots that were requested in the district that applies to campus,” he said. “It is unusual that [that information] would be requested ... I thought they would be surprised by it.”

“We made them work, which is good,” he added. “I would prefer if they hadn’t found out about the absentee ballots and worked, but they did.”

Fisch said he believes his campaign has helped educate council members about issues important to student voters, adding that he thinks Wilkes and Crumiller will “do a great job.”

Thanking his staff of volunteers, Fisch acknowledged how much time and effort his peers put into campaigning for him, noting that they put flyers on roughly 70 percent of the doors in the Borough.

Student candidates have not fared well in Borough Council elections in recent years. In November 2001, Steven Abt ’04 ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate. Three years later, Evan Baehr ’05 ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in that year’s general election, finishing behind current Borough councilmen Andrew Koontz and Roger Martindell.

In November 2007, Joe Codega ’09, who ran as a Republican, was also defeated in his bid for a position on the council.