UNC’s Student Congress fills 13 vacant seats in special election

All 13 of the vacant seats in Student Congress were filled Monday after a special election that saw 564 students vote online.

But write-in candidates, who won the vast majority of open graduate student seats, must formally accept their seats in order for the body to avoid another special election.

Despite concerns about filling graduate student seats, Board of Elections chairwoman Shruthi Sundaram said the election was a success.

Filling graduate seats is an issue that occurs from year to year. That includes this year, Sundaram said.

“Part of that is that there’s only one seat open in the four undergraduate districts, whereas some of the graduate districts have multiple seats open,” Sundaram said before results were known.

Districts 1, 5 and 6 were filled after general elections last year, leaving one seat open in each of the four remaining undergraduate districts.

Sundaram said all undergraduate district winners were on the ballot, not write-ins.

Graduate students fill the seats in districts 8, 9 and 10.

All five winners from district 8, both winners from district 9, and one of two winners from district 10 were write-in candidates.

Sundaram said she assumes winners from district 8 will accept seats because each winner received more than 15 votes.

The winners of district 9 each received one vote.

“The only questionable district right now is district 9,” she said.

Title VI of the Student Code mandates that any empty seats in Student Congress be filled by a special election.

Speaker of Student Congress Zach De La Rosa said before results were known that he expected all undergraduate seats to be filled, but was unsure about graduate seats.

Sundaram said few people sent emails to report problems or difficulties with Information Technology Services’ voting software.

“This is probably the fewest number of people who had problems with voting software,” she said.

Imran Froogh, a sophomore and winner of district 3, said he is excited.

“To be honest with you, I’m just humbled by the overwhelming amount of support I got today,” he said.

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