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The Fall 2013 ASUCD Election was held from Tuesday, November 12th to Friday, November 15th (8am to 8am) online at http://elections.ucdavis.edu. There were 10 candidates competing for 6 seats on the ASUCD Senate. NOW ran a full ticket with 6 candidates, SMART fielded 2, and 2 candidates ran as Independents. While not as bad as some elections, 10 candidates made this race the fourth-least competitive since ASUCD transitioned to Choice Voting in Fall 2003.

Voter turnout was 14.29%, the lowest its been since Fall 2011 ASUCD Election.

Results

The preliminary results were released on November 15, 2013. Since no complaints were filed this election cycle, the results will become official on November 22, 2013.

Senate Candidates

• Gareth Smythe (I)
• Mariah Kala Watson (SMART)
• Katherine Sherman (NOW)
• Shehzad Lokhandwalla (I)
• Janesh Gupta (NOW)
• Jonathan Mitchell (NOW)

Ballot Measures

As a result of the passage of the ASUCD Due Process Amendment, the seating of the ASUCD Senators will take place on December 5, 2013 and the current fall term senators terms were extended until then.

• ASUCD Court Oath of Office Amendment (Passed)
• ASUCD Due Process Amendment (Passed)
• Campus Leadership Amendment (Passed)

Aggie Endorsements

"The California Aggie" has endorsed:

• 1. Maria Watson (SMART)
• 2. Gareth Smythe (I)
• 3. Janesh Gupta (NOW)
• 4. Hiba Saeed (SMART)

As seen in some previous elections, the Aggie decided to not give a full endorsement of six candidates as it normally would. Taken from the endorsement article, "The Aggie believes that many of the remaining candidates are running on unrealistic platforms, most of which surmise to lobbying facets of campus that ASUCD has no control over. We feel that Senate is not the proper medium to make realistic reform in these organizations, and that these six seats should be filled with students whose expectations align with what ASUCD can actually deliver."

Fun Statistics

For the following sections bold means they were one of the winning candidates. These are not the actual election results.

Condorcet Winner

The Condorcet winner (the least objectionable candidate) of this election was Gareth Smythe.

Top 6

1724
Gareth Smythe
1572
Mariah Kala Watson
1542
Janesh Gupta
1414
Nicholas Park
1375
Alisa Palma
1315
Katherine Sherman
1313
Jonathan Mitchell
1290
Hiba Saeed
1051
Seanne Louvet
1045
Shehzad Lokhandwalla

Most Hated

Who got the most last-ranked votes?

138
Shehzad Lokhandwalla
98
Jonathan Mitchell
89
Hiba Saeed
83
Mariah Kala Watson
79
Seanne Louvet
60
Gareth Smythe
55
Janesh Gupta
50
Katherine Sherman
43
Nicholas Park
34
Alisa Palma

Potential Countback Elections

These six Countback Elections were run assuming there have been no prior resignations from this election and assuming all non-elected candidates were willing to fill a vacancy.

Gareth Smythe would be replaced by Hiba Saeed. Mariah Kala Watson would be replaced by Hiba Saeed. Shehzad Lokhandwalla would be replaced by Hiba Saeed. Janesh Gupta would be replaced by Nicholas Park. Jonathan Mitchell would be replaced by Nicholas Park. Katherine Sherman would be replaced by Nicholas Park.

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2013-11-21 23:29:03   Someone should let the current ASUCD Elections Chair know that he was wrong when he said "Voter turnout is directly correlated to the number of candidates" to The Aggie. If you look at all of the Fall Elections from 2003 to 2013 the two highest turnout elections had 13 and 14 candidates, the two lowest turnout elections had 13 and 16 candidates. If you remove those four elections (even though there is no justifiable reason to do so), there actually was an increase in turnout when the number of candidates increased... until this election, which had higher turnout with fewer candidates. The Winter Elections paint a similar picture where you have to throw out half of the elections as outliers to get a direct correlation between voter turnout and number of candidates. It's speculation on my part but I think it has more to do with who is running than how many people are running. For instance, a popular candidate who can bring in people who wouldn't normally vote will have more of an impact on voter turnout than 3 candidates fighting for votes from the same base of supporters.

Also, it's still absurd that the Elections Committee is held responsible for voter turnout. At best the Elections Committee can tell people there is an election happening but no significant number of people are going to vote because they were persuaded by the Elections Committee. It's not Freddie Oakley's job to convince you to vote, just to let you know when, where and how to vote. —JonathonLeathers

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2013-11-21 23:49:20   I'm with ☝︎. It's the job of the Elections Committee to let people know that an election is taking place. It's always been the jobs of candidates to draw promote turnout of their own voters (and possibly suppress turnout for their opponents). Candidate quality is a driver of these turnout.

But Jon, can we get a plot of turnout vs. candidate pool? I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of correlation, if not a strong one. I'd hypothesize you could explain maybe 20-40% of the variability by candidate pool size. —BrentLaabs

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2013-11-24 01:17:42   Brent, the data comparing turnout and number of candidates can be found here: http://www.jtleathers.com/asucd/voterturnout.html. I never bothered to compare the two very closely because I didn't see enough correlation to think the number of candidates would ever be an accurate predictor of turnout. —JonathonLeathers