All empty UNC Student Congress seats filled

All of the 11 empty seats in Student Congress were filled in the special election held Thursday specifically to fill the vacant seats, according to unofficial results made available Thursday night.

Seven are graduate student seats.

Results show 4,851 votes were cast.

The special election was prompted by an Oct. 8 suit brought by graduate Student Congress representative Emily Danforth against Student Body President Jasmin Jones and Board of Elections Chairman Pete Gillooly.

Danforth complained in the lawsuit that without an election to fill the empty seats, graduate students would not have the opportunity to represent their interests in Congress.

At a Graduate and Professional Student Federation meeting held Thursday night, Danforth announced that there were no official candidates for the empty seat in District 8, a graduate student district.

But Danforth said anyone interested in running as a last-minute write-in candidate could probably win, given the lack of competition.

Speaker of Congress Joe Levin-Manning also encouraged graduate students to run, if not in Thursday’s election, for a seat in the general election.

“I think it would be really great for graduate students to have full representation in Congress,” Levin-Manning said in the meeting.

Gillooly said he would have no problem with graduate students embracing write-in candidates at the last minute, because the process is legal.

“If it fills the seats and it’s all legal, then I’m all right with that,” he said.

Thursday’s election saw an impressive turnout, said former Board of Elections Chairman Ryan Morgan.

“Four thousand people would be a pretty good turnout,” Morgan said before results were known.

Gillooly said the election’s races were fairly competitive relative to past races.

The election for Homecoming was also held Thursday, although the results will not be announced until Saturday.

All election results are preliminary and have to be certified by the Board of Elections by Friday at 5 p.m. when all candidates must submit financial statements.

Congressional Winners by district:
District 3
South Campus
6 seats, 2 open
Winners: Adam Jutha and Evan Ross

District 4
Granville
2 seats, 1 open
Mario Benavente

District 6
Off Campus
10 seats, 1 open
Will McKeen

District 8
Graduate students, College of Arts and Sciences
5 seats, 1 open
Serena Witzke

District 9
Graduate students, professional schools
5 seats, 3 open
Crystal Boni, Lace Wayman and Chris Fowler

District 10
Graduate students, medical school
6 seats, 3 open
Matt Skancke, Lisa Heimbach and Adam Campbell

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.