UW-Madison’s freshman class of 2021 now has representation on the Associated Students of Madison’s council, after the election concluded and winners were announced Wednesday night.
Nathan Miller, Iris Huang, Cecilia Myers and Jack Madison were elected to the ASM Student Council, defeating 29 other first-year students excluding write-in candidates. 29 percent of the freshman class cast ballots, an 8 percentage-point increase from last year’s elections.
Turnout is generally much higher for freshman representative races than for general ASM representative elections, and this year was no exception. The 29 percent turnout was more than three times that of last spring’s ASM elections, open to the entire student body, in which 9 percent of students voted.
Miller was the top vote-getter this fall, earning 450 votes. Huang won 404, Myers won 394 and Madison took 320, narrowly edging out Victoria Barrett, who earned 309 votes.
This year’s freshman class will be the last to hold seats on the council, after the Student Judiciary redistributed the seats this fall. With the end of this election, the annual fall elections have now come to a permanent close.
Huang, one of the newly elected representatives, said she’s excited to start making a difference as part of Council. She said her goals include “refining” the bus system on campus, creating a more efficient online tutoring system and generally moving school programs into the digital age.
“I know this feeling of wanting to devote myself to service,” Huang said. “To make students happy, to make my peers happy — that’s really my main goal.”
