Updated: Gansa '17 wins popular vote in USG election, runoff election to be held

William Gansa ’17 and Ella Cheng ’16 will participate in a runoff election for the position of Undergraduate Student Government president, according to an email that outgoing USG president Shawon Jackson ’15 sent to the student bodyon Friday afternoon.

A runoff election will be held in a similar manner as regular elections, with campaigning being subject to the same penalties and rules.

Cheng is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Gansa, who has no prior USG experience, won the popular vote, with over 43.85 percent of the votes or 1,116 votes in his favor. Cheng, current University Student Life Committee chair, came in second with 841 votes or 31.63 percent of the votes. Elections manager Amara Nnaeto ’17 explained that a runoff election always occurs when no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in a race with three or more candidates.

Molly Stoneman ’16, the current USG vice president, received 24.52 percent of the votes or 652 votes and is no longer part of the race. Nnaeto noted that the USG elections handbook states that only the two candidates who receive the highest number of votes in the initial election participate in the runoff election.

The total number of students who voted in the 2014 presidential elections was 2,659 compared with 1,906 last year.

Gansa has run for election on aplatformof 'bike reform,' ripe fruit and waffle fries. 'Bike reform' is a mysterious term that is included in his platform but defined nowhere.

He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Cheng said she would like to emphasize USG’s involvement in student life as well as the execution of newpolicies and projectsthat will directly impact students. She added that she also hopes to address any “anti-USG” sentiment.

“The tone [of my campaign] has changed over the course of the past week, and I’m going to continue along that change in tone; my campaign will center around providing hope in USG but also to thank people and remind people of what USG has done for them,” she said.

Cheng said student opinion of USG can be shown, to a degree, through the large student turnout. She aims to show that USG can improve for the better, she said.

Cheng added that Stoneman was a great competitor in the election and collaborator in USG and hopes that Stoneman'ssupporters will be able to trust Cheng as a candidate. She said she also wants to open up a conversation with Gansa and discuss plans to move USG forward.

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Stoneman said she is fully endorsing Cheng during the runoff elections. She added that she is optimistic about her own future and hopes to support USG.

“I plan on using the rest of my time at Princeton to make as much of a difference as I can; one of the plans that I was most passionate about during the election was hosting the first Inter-Ivy Women’s Leadership Conference, an idea I’m still extremely passionate about and hope to execute during my remaining time at Princeton,” she said.

Stoneman also noted that the higher turnout was encouraging in that more students were aware of USG’s mission. However, she added that she hopes students will reflect on their own priorities as well as those of the University, commenting that the election has exposed positives and negatives.

Five hundred and seventy-three seniors, 754 juniors, 729 sophomores and 603 freshmen voted in this year’s election. This figure compares with the 389 seniors, 511 juniors, 529 sophomores and 552 freshmen who voted last year.

“There’s higher interest in USG this year, which is great, because we are always looking for higher turnout, and we’re happy with the numbers; we hope that we have the same higher counts in the runoff and can repeat this same kind of turnout for future elections,” Nnaeto said.

Aleksandra Czulak ’17 won the position of vice president, winning 58.36 percent of the votes and defeating Dallas Nan ’16. She held the majority in every class year except for the Class of 2016.

Kathy Chow ’17 won the position of University Student Life Committee chair with a close 50.78 percent of the votes. She won the popular vote for the Class of 2017 and Class of 2018 while opponent Carly Jackson ’16 won the popular vote for the Class of 2015 and Class of 2016.

With 63.92 percent of the votes and a majority in all classes, Simon Wu ’17 was voted Social Committee chair over Philip Adams ’17. Ramie Fathy ’16 is the new Academics Committee chair after running unopposed.

The Class of 2017 senators are Kishan Bhatt’17and Chris Shin’17, who won the majority of votes with 339 and 359 votes, respectively. Class of 2018 senators are Paul Draper’18and Rohan Patlolla’18with 170 and 108 votes, respectively. Ethan Marcus ’18 was only two votes behind to tie with Patlolla.

There were no candidates for the positions of Class of 2016 senator, treasurer or Campus and Community Affairs Committee chair. An appointed chair application process will begin after the runoff election concludes.

In addition to the elections, both referenda were passed with overwhelming support from the voters. The referendum regardingUniversity mental health policieshad 2,462 votes in agreement compared to 117 in disagreement. However, there was slightly less agreement in regards to the referendum on thereestablishment of a campus pub, with 2,166 voting affirmatively compared to 409 negatively.

Voting for presidential runoff elections will begin atnoon on Dec. 1and close atnoon on Dec. 3. The results for the presidential winner will be announced onDec. 5.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated the nature of the election for USG academics chair. The election was unopposed. The 'Prince' regrets the error.