Undergraduates elect senior Amy Kramer as next Young Trustee

Senior Amy Kramer was elected as the undergraduate Young Trustee Tuesday.

The young trustee election went to an instant run-off format because none of the four candidates won a majority of the vote. 30.1 percent of voters ranked Kramer first, followed by senior Chinmay Pandit with 27.7 percent. Senior Bryce Cracknell received approximately 24.8 percent of votes and senior Liz Brown received 17.4 percent.

Junior Sabriyya Pate, Duke Student Government Attorney General, noted in an email that there were three rounds of instant runoff recalculations. After the rounds of IRV, Pandit remained the second place finisher by less than 100 votes. She also noted this year had a "record-breaking" voter turnout of 3,709 students. Last year, 2,504 students voted in the Young Trustee election.

“It is very exciting to see more students actively participating in student-wide elections over," Pate wrote. "Young Trustees are supposed to share a 'young' perspective on the Board, hence it is important that current students play an active in determining who represents this perspective."

She attributed some of the success in voter turnout to the Board of Elections by "creating well-advertised resources for students to learn about all candidates, encouraging candidates to pursue far-reaching campaigns, and for the first time creating non-partisan Young Trustee candidate flyers." She added that no campaign violations were submitted this year.

Kramer's campaign emphasized improving access and diversity at Duke. She was endorsed by organizations including the Duke Honor Council, Jewish Student Union and duARTS.

On campus, Kramer is a Robertson Scholar and Schwarzman Scholar, as well as an Army ROTC cadet. Her thesis research focused on how to improve opportunities for women in the military. 

Graduate students will select their trustee this evening.