Election 2018 results: Freedom Party wins senate seats in close election

Zoe Deno

News Editor

The Freedom Party won all four seats in the senate in one of the closest elections the college has seen.

“I was [very] surprised to hear that I had won,” said student body vice president elect, Ali Ahmad Cheema. “It was a very close race, right up to the last second. There were certain points where I was sure [the other party] was going to win. In the end, it is not a win or lose situation — we are all working toward the same common goal to improve student life on campus.”

Assistant Director of Student Life Alfredo Balarin said these were the closest student elections he has ever seen in his 20 years of working at Hudson Valley.

Jamison Jarosz beat Ganiat Giwa for student body president by 42 votes, with only seven students abstaining from voting for either of them. Cheema won over Alexis Papadakis by only eight votes with 11 students choosing not to vote for a vice president.

Sayema Matin lost to Brendan Caluneo for student treasurer by the smallest difference seen in this year’s elections of only seven votes, with 16 students abstaining. Caluneo beat Matin for student trustee by the much larger margin of 20 votes, with 17 students abstaining. Maeve Uhald beat Sophia Ventrano by 27 votes, with 12 abstains.

A total of 9,285 students were eligible to vote this semester. Of this number, 271 students chose to vote for their student senate candidates.

Director of Student Life Louis Coplin was disappointed in the low turnout.

“This is a number that we typically associate with the Freshmen Elections,” he said. “In the Freshmen Elections, only students in their first year of college are allowed to vote, so the turnout is generally significantly lower.”

Giwa said much had been brought up as reasons that might of factored into why they lost, including race and gender.

“For me, a loss is a loss,” Giwa said. “The next question is what do you do now? I completely support Jamison, but I also promised the students to help bring diversity to campus.”

Giwa intends to work closely with the senate through the Cultural Pride Club to bring more events that celebrate diversity to campus.

“There is a lot of controversy surrounding whether or not the race was fair,” she said. “Some have come up to me with accusations, but I have not seen the proof. I hope [the election] was fair, but my main concern is how I can still fulfill the promises that I made to the student body.”

Brendan McDonough is a senior senate on the student senate. He also helped to manage the campaign of the People’s Party.

“It was disappointing to put so much effort into the election and see us lose by a margin of six to 20 votes and to see them bring people into the computer labs and have them vote right in front of them,” McDonough said. “It was obviously against the rules.”

Cheema denied the claims.

“We were in the computer labs earlier in the day, but we were just talking about our strategy for the last few hours,” Cheema said. “We did not give out any fliers. We did not go into any computer labs in the last couple hours. You can check the surveillance cameras,” he said.

McDonough also mentioned Student Activities had been forced to intervene when the Freedom Party had set up a table in front of the clock tower to speak to students about their campaign ideas.

“I read through the bylaws before we did that to see if we were prohibited to set up that table,” Jarosz said. “Faculty came by and said that we were not able to have a table there, so we had to shut it down.”

The faculty member who worked for the Student Activities Office told members of the Freedom Party it had something to do with insurance. Coplin had not heard about this incident, Cheema said.

“[The People’s Party] respect the results, but we do not want to see this happen again in the future,” McDonough said.

The respect between the parties is mutual.

“[Our party] had a lot of great ideas, and The People’s Party had a lot of great ideas, and I am looking forward to implementing all of them and any idea that can make the community or the college better,” Jarosz said.

Jarosz continued, “If you have any ideas, please reach out to us with anything that will benefit the student body. We will make time for you.”