The winter 2018 Student Union Elections saw 17 candidates compete for 10 positions. Voting opened just after midnight on Jan. 25, and results were in by early morning on Jan. 26. 

There were two open positions on the Senate: Shangyuan (Gloria) Xu ’21 won the Mid-Year Senator seat, while the Ziv Quad Senator seat remains open.

There were a total of 21 votes for Mid-Year Senator. Xu took home 20 votes; the other sole vote was an abstention. For the Ziv Quad Senator position, there were 16 abstentions and 15 write-ins, a total of 31 votes. 

In an email to the Justice, Xu wrote that as the Mid-Year Senator, she hopes to “help mid year students blend in Brandeis more smoothly, and have a fantastic semester.” 

The Allocations Board had four open positions. Rebecca Shaar ’21 took home the three semester seat, beating out Kaixuan Ding ’21 and George Li ’21. Shaar won with 34.85 percent, or 176 of the 505 votes cast. 

In an interview with the Justice, Shaar shared her goal of “uphold[ing] the existing system for equitably distributing funds and help[ing] amend that system when necessary!” 

Four contestants faced off for the two open two semester A-Board seats: Andrews Figueroa ’19, Alan Huang ’21, Yijin (Bella) Lu ’20 and Zhixin (Sissel) Tan ’21. 

Figueroa received 26.45 percent, or 187 of the 707 votes cast. Huang won 22.49 percent, or 159 votes. Lu came in third with 19.24 percent, or 136 of the votes, and Tan walked away with 12.02 percent, or 85 votes. 

The Allocations Board two semester racial-minority seat had three contestants: Shiyi (Wendy) Mao ’21, Anisha Purohit ’21 and Daniel Kang ’19. Mao won the seat, garnering 26.38 percent of the vote, or 62 of the total 235 votes cast.

Kang was one vote behind with 25.96 percent, or 61 votes. Purohit received 51 votes, marking 21.70 percent of the total votes cast. The remaining 56 votes were abstentions. 

The Judiciary had three seats open for associate justice, with four contestants facing off: Yale Sussman ’21, Wenjing (Winnie) Qin ’21, Rolonda Donelson ’20 and Leo Passman ’21. Sussman received 23.74 percent, or 202 of the 851 votes cast. Qin came in a close second with 23.38 percent,  or 199 votes. Donelson took the third seat, receiving 21.62 percent, or 184 votes. Passman received 20.21 percent of the vote, with 172 casting their ballots for him and the remaining 88 voters abstaining. 

In an email to the Justice, Sussman declared that as associate justice, he will bring “a level of practicality and pragmaticism [sic] to the Judiciary so that every club and student feel[s] that they are represented in a fair and efficient manner.”’ Sussman also thanked those who voted for him, adding that he wants to “make it easier for the Brandeis population to understand the workings and rulings of the court in a timely manner.” 

There was one seat open to juniors on the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, with Shijie (Jeremy) Xiao ’19 and Zhenping (Umans) You ’19 facing off. The majority of the votes cast in the election — 231 out of 482 — were abstentions. 

In an email to the Justice and the Brandeis Hoot, Student Union President Jacob Edelman ’18 explained that while the abstain option beat out both UCC candidates, because the option did not garner more than 50 percent of the votes, the seat would go to the candidate with the next highest amount of votes. 

Thus, the position went to Xiao, who received 27.18 percent, or 131 votes. You received 108 votes, or 22.41 percent of the total cast. 

Figueroa, Huang, Mao, Qin, Donelson and Xiao did not return requests for comment as of press time. 


—Editor’s note: Wenjing (Winnie) Qin ’21 is a Layout staff member for the Justice.