Kayleigh Erickson has been elected as the 2014-15 chairperson of the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS). Erickson, a current 2013-14 director-at-large, ran on the Vision UVic slate with Kaylee Szakacs, who was elected as executive director of student affairs; Anas Cheema, who was acclaimed as executive director of finance and operations; and seven elected directors-at-large (Jamie Cook, Jordan Crocker, Karthik Gopalakrishnan, Katerina Perlova, Kenya Rogers, Lindsey Willis, and Makenzie Zouboules). Greg Atkinson was elected as executive director of external relations, along with fellow Link UVic slate member Ian Kopp as executive director of events, and four Link UVic directors-at-large (Eric Cameron, Annie Do, Valerie Heckel, and incumbent Nick Tang). Independent candidate Casey Lazar for executive director of events reportedly received 929 votes to Kopp’s 936—a difference of seven votes in a category that saw eight spoiled electronic ballots.
Voter turnout for this UVSS board election was 17.08 per cent; out of an eligible 16707 undergraduate voters, 2853 cast ballots—down almost 200 from last year’s 3050, when there were 16796 eligible voters. Several candidates this year ran on a platform of greater student engagement (more on this and other platform implications in subsequent coverage).
Aside from Lazar, candidates who were not elected to the board include Link UVic’s Matt Hammer (current 2013-14 director of finance and operations) for chairperson, Ian Lackie for events, Alison Root for student affairs, and Dakota Mellin for director-at-large; along with Vision UVic’s Roy Nam for external relations and Brigitte Cheong, Jade Hoang, and Moiz Karim for directors-at-large.
The new board begins its term in May and holds office for one full calendar year. Student elections to the university Senate and university Board of Governors are still open at webvote.uvic.ca until 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 7.
For more on the election, see martlet.ca/category/elections. For a full ballot breakdown, see the UVSS electoral office’s published document here: http://uvsselections.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uvss-elections-results-14.pdf.
