After the Saint Mary's class elections experienced multiple delays due to technical difficulties, the votes were cast Wednesday and the results announced Thursday.
Sophomores Jenny Antonelli, Taryn Pabst, Jessica Kusak and Katie Putz will lead the Class of 2009, the only class with more than one ticket running. Antonelli-Pabst picked up 58.6 percent of the votes.
The other ticket, led by sophomore Sarah Voss, received 40.5 percent of votes.
The Class of 2010 will be led by freshmen Camille Gebert, Emily Young, Jennie Hiatt and Caitlin O'Brien, who received 72 percent of their peers' votes. Juniors Colleen Kielty, Erin Hogan, Elizabeth Bush and Shawn Redington, who received 68.2 percent of the votes, will head the senior class next year.
A full 31.8 percent of juniors voted "abstain," however. Among freshmen, 28 percent of students voted abstain. However, the two-ticket sophomore race saw just 0.9 percent of the class choose the abstain option.
All the winning tickets expressed their happiness with the high degree of student participation in this year's elections as well as their anticipation for the coming year.
"We are very excited to be able to represent and serve our junior class," said Antonelli, the new junior class president. "We're looking forward to planning events and activities that will not only benefit the junior class but also the rest of the students."
Putz, the new junior class secretary, echoed Antonelli's words and said the technical difficulties that delayed the elections two days weren't as discouraging as Saint Mary's students may have initially thought.
"I'm really excited about it," Putz said. "It's going to be a lot of fun year next year. Even though there were delays in voting it allowed us to work together as an executive board and showed us that we can work with the Class of 2009 when unexpected situations arise."
The rest of Antonelli's cabinet also shared this enthusiasm and confidence as they prepared to settle into their new roles.
"I think that our entire ticket was very excited to get the opportunity to work for our class," said Pabst, the new junior class vice president. "I'm very happy that all hard work paid off. ... We'd like to bring our class closer together and create more class unity next year."
Even the other ticket running for junior board said they enjoyed the race.
"I think that the other ticket worked extremely hard and they did a great job and they really deserve it," said Voss, who was running for junior class president. Her running mate, sophomore Sarah Dalton, declined to comment Thursday.
The freshman ticket, however, openly celebrated its victory. Gebert, next year's sophomore class president, said she looked forward to collaborating with her running mates and peers.
"I'm really excited to be leading our class next year," Gebert said. "We have a bunch of new ideas to bring the Class of 2010 closer together and a bunch of new things to bring to campus, and I'm just looking forward to starting the year off with getting everyone involved."
The rising sophomores said they will work to increase student involvement in class activities.
"What I'm looking forward to most is more class participation from everyone and more exciting events and stuff like that," said Hiatt, Gebert's running mate.
Similarly, the new senior class officers said they were ready for a fun year to end their time at Saint Mary's.
"The elections went smoothly and the four of us are excited for another year, for plans we are putting together plans for Senior Dads Weekend, Senior Week and several other events to take place next year," said Bush, the next senior class secretary.
