A run-off election for the Undergraduate Student Government presidency will be held between Aleksandra Czulak ’17 and Simon Wu ’17, according to an email to the student body from outgoing USG president Ella Cheng ’16.
Cheng is a former staff writer for the Daily Princetonian.
Chief Elections Manager Sung Won Chang ’18 said the candidates will need to adhere to the same rules and regulations as in the primary election.
The candidates will have a few days to campaign before voting officially begins onMonday, Nov. 30. Polls will close onWednesday, Dec. 2and the winner will be announced onFriday, Dec. 4. Since the race will only include two candidates, whoever wins the majority of votes will become the next USG president.
A total of 1,623 students cast votes for the three presidential candidates: Czulak, Wu and Grant Golub ’17. Wu received 730 votes, 45.0 percent of the total, and Czulak received 629 votes, 38.8 percent of the total. Golub received 264 votes, the remaining 16.3 percent.
Golub is a former staff writer and staff copy editor for the ‘Prince.’
Wu received more votes than Czulak did from the Classes of 2019, 2018 and 2016, and Wu and Czulak tied in the Class of 2017.
Wu, who has served as the chief designer and social chair of USG, said that his platform will continue to center on connection, explaining that the most important parts of his campaign are connecting to people, increasing resources on campus and fostering deeper discussions. He added that he hopes to improve collaboration within the Senate.
“I think the most important parts … would be working on tangible results, on larger infrastructural changes in the Senate to restructure meetings to be more efficient,” Wu noted.
Wu said he hopes to make on-campus resources more available to students by creating videos and infographics that better advertise opportunities and resources such as fellowships, 24-hour study spaces, and help from Counseling and Psychological Services.
Czulak, the current USG vice president, said after going door-to-door during her campaign and receiving feedback from students through the Google form on her website, she has many more ideas to add to her agenda.
"I wouldn't say I'm changing my platform, I'm only adding to it,” she explained.
For example, she said she hopes to improve how students and faculty interact outside of class by seeking ways for students to engage with their professors beyond the settings of a classroom or office hours.
Czulak noted the three focal points of her campaign are collaboration, action and results. She noted that she is passionate about improving the resources and support for student groups on campus so that they can budget better, maintain consistent membership and keep good leadership structures in place.
Czulak also said that she plans to address mental health, a topic she brings up at the USG retreat every year.
“I need you to be healthy before you can do USG or even your academics, it's very important. It shouldn't be a trade-off. It should be, how can we help you be healthy and succeed during your time at Princeton, and also have a great time while you're here,” she explained.
Golub, who served as the Chief Elections Manager until this October, said that he is not sure yet if he will endorse another candidate for the presidency. While he is undecided about whether he will run for another elected position in the spring, he said that he will continue to do everything in his power to work closely with USG and highlight the issues he ran on, namely mental health, P/D/F policies and undergraduate faculty advising.
"I'm still convinced that the message I had was a winning message if, and it's a big if, enough kids actually cared to vote," Golub said. "But I think that almost every kid on campus could get behind one, or more, of the three things that I was trying to focus on."
Golub also challenged Wu and Czulak to lay out comprehensive plans to address mental health in their run-off.
“I would like to hear detailed plans about it, not just fake buzzwords like they've been putting out now,” he said.
He noted that the candidates have made clear that they intend to address mental health, but their words mean nothing unless they provide the concrete steps they plan to take.
Chang said that the voter turnout was around 35 percent, similar to that of previous years. While the turnout was lower than last year, last year's figure was an irregularity.
Chang said that USG should address increasing voter turnout in the future and noted that this is one of his goals as Chief Elections Manager. He suggested providing the student body with more information about the importance of different elected positions.
"Really a lot of people are not fully aware of the roles and responsibilities of the USG and how important the job they do is to the daily lives of undergraduate students,” Chang explained.
Czulak too said that she believes the voter turnout ought to be higher, and that the best way to increase turnout would be to send emails and post online and make students more aware of how USG can impact their daily lives.
Wu noted that the recent debates and protests on campus may have removed the USG election from the spotlight.
“This year, there was just a lot of important debates happening on campus and the election took a back seat,” he said.
Golub, like Wu, said that recent events on campus overshadowed the election.
“The fact that only 1600 kids voted is really kind of sad,” he said. “As hard as kids try to change that, that seems to be a rock that's been pretty hard to move, which is sad, because you'd think that at a place like Princeton more kids would care."
In the presidential election, 282 members of the Class of 2016 voted, 445 from the Class of 2017, 482 from the Class of 2018 and 414 from the Class of 2019.
For USG vice president, Jeremy Burton ’18 won with 57.7 percent of the votes and defeated Shobhit Kumar ’18. Burton won the popular vote in every class except for the Class of 2019, where Kumar won the popular vote.
Hunter Dong ’17 ran unopposed for the position of treasurer and was elected.
Shannon Osaka ’17 won the position of Academics Committee Chair after winning 65.0 percent of the votes and defeating candidates Dave Landeta ’19 and Patrick Flanigan ’18.
The next Campus and Community Affairs Committee Chair will be Michael Cox ’17, who ran uncontested. Jenny Zhang ’18 also won the uncontested position of University Student Life Committee Chair.
Rachel Park ’18 was elected the Social Committee Chair with 51.1 percent of the votes, defeating Lyon Aung ’18. Park won the majority of votes in the Classes of 2019, 2017 and 2016, but Aung won the popular vote in the Class of 2018.
The two Class of 2017 senators, Kishan Bhatt ’17 and Cailin Hong ’17, ran unopposed. The Class of 2018 senator, Paul Draper ’18, also ran unopposed.
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