The class council elections held last weekend managed to avoid the technical failures that plagued last spring’s Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) elections. The classes of 2016, 2017 and 2019 elected their representatives in an efficient process, with results announced on Sunday night.
The senior class, which had two contested races and a turnout rate of 70 percent, elected Robo Tavel as President and David Sperber as Vice President. Lindsay Picard’s candidacy for Treasurer and Arianna Cameron and Brian Francoeur’s candidacies for class representative to the BSG were all unopposed.
In the class of 2019 election with all races contested and a 76 percent voter turnout rate, students elected Paloma Tisaire as Class Council President, Megan Retana as Vice President, Michael Walsh as Treasurer and Jack Arnholz and Khelsea Gordon as BSG representatives.
The class of 2017’s election of Nick Benson as a class representative to the BSG assembly had only a 19 percent turnout, most likely due to the uncontested nature of the position.
Although they are only a few days into their positions, the officers are excited to start working. Both Tavel and Sperber have many years of experience working on class councils, something they both view as an asset going forward. 
“I think that experience gives you a sense who’s in your class, what they like to do and what they don’t,” said Sperber.
Tavel agreed, noting that seeing the success and failure of past events will allow him to learn from these experiences.
“We as a council will be able to plan events that get people excited and bring the class together, which is our number one goal,” Tavel said.
New to class office, Picard stressed her excitement about working with the other officers in spending the $30,000 allotted to the senior class council and about the chance to branch out.
“It’s pretty easy to get siloed into things at Bowdoin, so I’m excited to work with some new people,” Picard said.
The 2019 officers prioritized the need to learn more about their class. 
“[My role is to] guarantee the cohesiveness of all of the components of the class council and to be someone who wants to be approachable, someone that can be talked to,” Tisaire said. 
“[My goal] is getting to know the class and understanding what people want to see,” Retana said.
Walsh thinks that the social diversity of the elected candidates will help achieve Retana’s goal. 
“If you have an eclectic group of individuals leading the class, you’re going to be able to reach out to everybody,” Walsh said.

Election Procedure Changes
    
Last April’s BSG elections were marred by the crash of the voting server in the last few hours of the election as well as early dissemination of vote totals to certain candidates before the voting deadline was extended. According to Vice President for BSG Affairs Michelle Kruk ’16, for this election, BSG specifically worked to ensure that neither happened again.
Kruk worked with Vice President for Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting Tina Finneran to use Qualtrics, the tool that Bowdoin uses for institutional surveys, in lieu of the 14-year-old software that IT had written specifically for BSG’s elections. According to Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze, fears about a similar crash occurring several weeks after last spring’s election during the student referendum on the proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions led the College to switch to Qualtrics for that occasion. When that proved to be more reliable, Hintze recommended that Kruk work with Finneran for BSG elections this fall.
Finneran noted that Qualtrics has no history of crashes and is more customizable for future elections. In order to preserve confidentiality, Finneran, rather than Kruk, was the one who actually administered the election survey. Under Qualtrics, Finneran was the only able to see who voted. Neither she nor Kruk were able to see how students voted.
In previous election years, BSG executive committee members were privy to ongoing vote totals and had informally given them to candidates before the end of the election. Kruk noted that while there were no bylaws specifically prohibiting that, she and BSG President Danny Mejia-Cruz ’16 had very specifically decided to have no kind of mid-campaign polling, either informally for the candidates or officially for the whole school, in the interest of having a transparent and clean campaign.
Aside from Finneran, who was monitoring the total number of votes in order to ensure that the polling was working correctly, Kruk was the only BSG member who had access to the vote totals while the election progressed. According to Finneran, while it was possible to organize the system so that even the student organizing the election did not know the results until the end, both felt that it was something Kruk should have access to. 
“It’s an interesting question of how you have a fair, online voting system,” Finneran said. “It’s hard to do really well, particularly when you can’t track votes or look at the hanging chads.”   

The class council elections held last weekend managed to avoid the technical failures that plagued last spring’s Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) elections. The classes of 2016, 2017 and 2019 elected their representatives in an efficient process, with results announced on Sunday night.

The senior class, which had two contested races and a turnout rate of 70 percent, elected Robo Tavel as President and David Sperber as Vice President. Lindsay Picard’s candidacy for Treasurer and Arianna Cameron and Brian Francoeur’s candidacies for class representative to the BSG were all unopposed.

In the class of 2019 election with all races contested and a 76 percent voter turnout rate, students elected Paloma Tisaire as Class Council President, Megan Retana as Vice President, Michael Walsh as Treasurer and Jack Arnholz and Khelsea Gordon as BSG representatives.

The class of 2017’s election of Nick Benson as a class representative to the BSG assembly had only a 19 percent turnout, most likely due to the uncontested nature of the position.

Although they are only a few days into their positions, the officers are excited to start working. Both Tavel and Sperber have many years of experience working on class councils, something they both view as an asset going forward. 

“I think that experience gives you a sense who’s in your class, what they like to do and what they don’t,” said Sperber.

Tavel agreed, noting that seeing the success and failure of past events will allow him to learn from these experiences.

“We as a council will be able to plan events that get people excited and bring the class together, which is our number one goal,” Tavel said.

New to class office, Picard stressed her excitement about working with the other officers in spending the $30,000 allotted to the senior class council and about the chance to branch out.

“It’s pretty easy to get siloed into things at Bowdoin, so I’m excited to work with some new people,” Picard said.

The 2019 officers prioritized the need to learn more about their class. 

“[My role is to] guarantee the cohesiveness of all of the components of the class council and to be someone who wants to be approachable, someone that can be talked to,” Tisaire said. 

“[My goal] is getting to know the class and understanding what people want to see,” Retana said.

Walsh thinks that the social diversity of the elected candidates will help achieve Retana’s goal. 
“If you have an eclectic group of individuals leading the class, you’re going to be able to reach out to everybody,” Walsh said.

 
Election Procedure Changes

    
Last April’s BSG elections were marred by the crash of the voting server in the last few hours of the election as well as early dissemination of vote totals to certain candidates before the voting deadline was extended. According to Vice President for BSG Affairs Michelle Kruk ’16, for this election, BSG specifically worked to ensure that neither happened again.

Kruk worked with Vice President for Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting Tina Finneran to use Qualtrics, the tool that Bowdoin uses for institutional surveys, in lieu of the 14-year-old software that IT had written specifically for BSG’s elections. According to Director of Student Activities Nate Hintze, fears about a similar crash occurring several weeks after last spring’s election during the student referendum on the proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions led the College to switch to Qualtrics for that occasion. When that proved to be more reliable, Hintze recommended that Kruk work with Finneran for BSG elections this fall.
Finneran noted that Qualtrics has no history of crashes and is more customizable for future elections. In order to preserve confidentiality, Finneran, rather than Kruk, was the one who actually administered the election survey. Under Qualtrics, Finneran was the only able to see who voted. Neither she nor Kruk were able to see how students voted.

In previous election years, BSG executive committee members were privy to ongoing vote totals and had informally given them to candidates before the end of the election. Kruk noted that while there were no bylaws specifically prohibiting that, she and BSG President Danny Mejia-Cruz ’16 had very specifically decided to have no kind of mid-campaign polling, either informally for the candidates or officially for the whole school, in the interest of having a transparent and clean campaign.

Aside from Finneran, who was monitoring the total number of votes in order to ensure that the polling was working correctly, Kruk was the only BSG member who had access to the vote totals while the election progressed. According to Finneran, while it was possible to organize the system so that even the student organizing the election did not know the results until the end, both felt that it was something Kruk should have access to. 


“It’s an interesting question of how you have a fair, online voting system,” Finneran said. “It’s hard to do really well, particularly when you can’t track votes or look at the hanging chads.”