Nearly half the student body elected the members of the DSG executive board yesterday, marking the highest voter turnout in a presidential election since 2006.
Junior Pete Schork was elected Duke Student Government president for the upcoming academic year. Schork received 1,920 votes, or 61.4 percent of the total, defeating juniors Isaac Mizrahi and Ashley Jordan, who received 33.5 and 4.1 percent of votes, respectively. Write-in candidates comprised the remaining ballots, said DSG Attorney General Ryan Clark, a junior.
“It is truly an honor to represent our community next year,” Schork said. “It’s very humbling.”
A total of 3,206 undergraduates voted in the election, or 49.2 percent of the student body. Last year, DSG held one election for the president and executive vice president, which attracted 41.5 percent of the student body, and another for the vice presidential positions three weeks later, in which 26 percent of undergraduates voted.
Sophomore Gurdane Bhutani was elected executive vice president. Bhutani, currently the vice president for student affairs, received 65.6 percent of the total and defeated freshman Patrick Oathout, an academic affairs senator and rules committee member.
Schork and Bhutani will be joined on the executive board by junior Kaveh Danesh as vice president for academic affairs, junior Christina Lieu as vice president for athletics, services and the environment, junior Esosa Osa as vice president for residential life and dining, junior Ebonie Simpson as vice president for student life and sophomore Alex Swain as vice president for Durham and regional affairs.
All vice presidential candidates also received the majority of the vote and thus there was no instant runoff for any position. Danesh and Swain ran uncontested.
Schork said he is excited about the talent and diversity of the incoming executive board. The current DSG executive board is all male.
“People make the claim that we are not representative from a demographic perspective,” Schork said. “I want to change the idea that we’re an old boys’ club. The composition of the board itself will do a lot to open DSG up to the student body.”
Clark said there were no reported violations during the election process. Election results were delayed by three hours of deliberations by the DSG Judiciary, however, after Oathout challenged the way candidates’ names were arranged on the electronic ballot. Oathout filed a complaint with the Judiciary because he said the change from alphabetical ordering of candidates to a randomly generated ballot had not been approved by the Senate.
The Judiciary voted unanimously that the change was constitutionally sound.
“Since the way in which candidate names should be listed on the ballot is not included in either the Election Bylaws or rules and procedures, the attorney general’s decision to list names by randomized order does not constitute an alteration in the election procedures,” the majority opinion read.
Clark attributed the increase in voter turnout of this election to the return of joint presidential and vice presidential elections, which he thought helped generate more excitement and student interest in this election than last year.
Current DSG President Mike Lefevre, a senior, said the candidates’ campaigns reached many parts of the student body.
“It was a really fun campaign to watch,” he said. “Everyone brought their own voting block, and that contributed to the high voting turnout.”
Schork said he is looking forward to working with his new executive board. He noted that his priorities for next year include facilitating the house model transition and the West Union Building renovations, reaching out to the student community and increasing student support services.
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