Carolyn French
National Beat Reporter
Voting for UCSB’s Associated Student (AS) elections concluded on Thursday, April 22, and the results are in: Five executive positions and 26 legislative positions were filled. Additionally, a list of 33 reaffirmations and five new financial measures were voted on with a 5,122 undergraduate student turnout for the online election.
Undergraduate students showed a 24.16 percent voter turnout while graduate students showed a 24.78 percent turnout, surpassing the 20 percent voter threshold needed to validate the results. The undergraduate turnout showed a 4.68 percent drop from 2019’s election, marking it as the lowest voter turnout in the past six years.
Storke Party member Avital Rutenburg, a newly-elected collegiate senator for the College of Letters & Science, said that voting declines in the past two years have been caused by off-campus learning due to Coronavirus.
National Beat Reporter
The UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) spring 2021 campus elections will be open for voting starting April 19 and will close April 21. The elections are guided by the Campus Elections Commission (CEC) and will allow both undergraduate and graduate students to vote on measures surrounding school fees.
A 20 percent voter turnout will be required to validate the election and participation allows students to better understand where their money is being allocated. Students are urged to carefully review each organization’s proposed measures before voting for any mandatory service fees. Strong support or opposition towards any measure can be submitted to the CEC as a Pro/Con Statement.