Last week, 1,400 Washington University students voted in the fall Student Union (SU) elections. The vote count represented a dramatic increase in turnout when compared to the fall elections last year.

According to the Election Commissioner, sophomore Sarah Rubin, statistics from last year indicated that approximately 600 people voted in the elections held at the same time in 2009.

For the first time, Treasury elections were held in the fall, which might have aided in increasing voter turnout. The fall Treasury elections came as a result of the passage of a constitutional amendment last spring requiring that Treasury representatives be up for election every semester.

“In comparison to last year’s fall, the turnout has been great,” said sophomore Mamatha Challa, the speaker of the Senate. “It was great to see so many people voting.”

The elections brought in a wave of new faces to the Treasury and Senate.

“A lot of people that are leaving Senate are people that have served for a while, so they can no longer run,” Challa said. “I’m excited to get fresh faces and new people bringing energy to Senate.”

A large number of freshmen ran for office.

“We tried really hard to let [freshmen] know what was going on with Student Union,” Rubin said. “People who lost bids for Freshman Class Council positions were encouraged to reapply.”

Rubin said that SU did a great deal of advertising for the election to make the student body aware of which positions were being voted on and the times at which voting could take place.

The fact that all Treasury seats were up for election encouraged some students to run for Treasury positions.

“I had a better chance of getting on Treasury,” Treasury Representative-Elect and sophomore Paul Blachar said. “I wanted to do something that I felt had a real impact, and I thought that helping other student groups concretely do something has an impact in students’ lives.”

In most of the Senate races, there were few candidates. In the Arts & Sciences Senate election, seven students won positions out of a field of eight candidates. One write-in candidate, freshman Matt Re, won with a total of nine votes, narrowly beating out another write-in candidate, sophomore Ross Passo, who garnered seven votes.

Also on the ballot was a constitutional amendment that altered the format of Treasury elections. The amendment won in a 1,186 to 207 vote and states that half of the Treasury seats will be voted on in the spring while the other half will fall under the fall election cycle.

The method of voting, in addition, changed slightly from last year to this year. Previously, students would vote on WebSTAC using a link on the left hand column. The old method required that a technology staff member create a form based on data delivered from SU. This year, however, the SU election commission used new software to deliver the ballot directly to the student body.

“My main job is to make sure elections run smoothly and campaigns are run fairly,” Rubin said. “A big challenge this year is using the new software. This year we had to build the ballot and create the new formatting.”

Now that elections are over, SU is gearing up for a number of projects it has been looking to implement by way of Senate. One project relates to increasing the availability of the alumni network to the career advisors on campus. Additionally, Senate is looking to spread information on the University’s honor code and to improve the way that freshmen go through alcohol education. Finally, SU is looking into internal operations in order to improve its efficacy and efficiency.

All in all, SU leaders say that the election brings promise for next semester’s student government.

“This election is adding enthusiasm and energy to the work of SU,” Challa said. “When you have people around for a long time, a ‘groupthink’ mentality emerges. By bringing in new people, we will be able to represent the opinions of everyone on campus.”

Correction: In the original posting of this article, it was reported that “Also on the ballot was a constitutional amendment to revert the election rules pertaining to the Treasury back to the old method of electing Treasury representatives for the year, instead of the newly-instituted method of electing representatives twice a year. The amendment won in a 1,186 to 207 vote.” This is incorrect. Half of the Treasury seats will be voted in each fall and the remaining half in the spring. Student Life regrets the error.