Results for the Associated Students of Whitman College 2014-2015 executive council election were released on Monday, April 14.
This election had a 58 percent voter turnout, which was slightly lower than last year’s turnout, and these voters elected both a female president and vice president.
Junior Tatiana Kaehler will be ASWC president for the 2014-2015 academic year after capturing 66.8 percent of the vote.
Junior Tabor Martinsen will be the ASWC finance committee chair after winning a competitive three-way race that resulted in a run-off of votes. They will be joined on the executive committee by juniors Sayda Morales and George Felton, who were elected vice president and nominations committee chair respectively. Both Morales and Felton ran unopposed.
Kaehler, who was ASWC finance committee chair this year, defeated sophomore Allison Kelly in a race where both candidates campaigned around the campus. It has been eight years since ASWC had a female president, and this year’s election was the first in recent memory to feature two female candidates and no male ones.
Turnout for the presidential elections was higher than that of other races––895 students cast their votes. In the first round of voting, Kaehler received 598 votes, or 66.8 percent, securing the presidency, while Kelly received 263 votes, or 29.5 percent.
Martinsen was elected this year’s finance chair in a close race against sophomores Skye Vander Laan and Phuong Le. After the first round of voting, no candidate managed to secure an absolute majority of the 793 votes cast. Martinsen came first with 324 votes, or 40.1 percent. Vander Laan came in second with 292 votes, or 36.8 percent, and Le came in third with 168 votes, or 21.2 percent.
Because an absolute majority is needed to win a seat in ASWC’s executive council, votes were re-counted, and ballots which marked Le as their first choice were reassigned to each voter’s second choice candidate, if the voter chose to mark one. This resulted in Martinsen having 381 votes, or 53 percent, out of the 719 ballots. This marked a secondary preference, which was enough to secure a victory, while Vander Laan finished with 338 votes, or 47.0 percent.
