Undergraduate wins high-turnout UB Council election

Jonathan Yedin, a junior political science and economics major, was declared the winner of this week's UB Council election on Thursday.

Almost 900 students voted online in the election, which ran Monday through Wednesday. Last year, voter turnout was about half that number.

Yedin will serve as the lone student representative on the council, which is a high-profile advisory board to the university president. He received 30.5 percent of the unprecedented 894 votes, and Adam Bushey, a graduate law student, came in second with 21.1 percent.

Jennifer Wantz, an assistant director in the Office of Student Life, said the UB Council election is not widely known, but each year the student interest continues to grow.

"It is not as popular as the Student Association elections," Wantz said.

Yedin said regardless of the winner, he was impressed with the voter turnout.

"I am glad that more students are caring about this election," he said.

Two years ago, only one person ran and there wasn't an election, according to Wantz. Last year, six candidates ran with online voting for the first time.

"It's exciting to see how many students care about this election," Wantz said of this year's ballot, which saw six candidates. "Every year gets a little bit better."

Yedin will replace David Brooks, who served one year in office.

"I want to be more known than Brooks," Yedin said. "I want to use this job to produce more results."

The other nine members of the UB Council are selected by the governor and serve seven-year terms.

Yedin said he plans to ensure students are the number one priority in the eyes of the administration. One of his ideas is to expand the use of campus cash.

"I want to engage with off-campus businesses and propose an idea for them to allow campus cash," Yedin said.

Yedin said this idea would be good for the business community because it opens the door to thousands of UB students. The plan would also benefit students by giving them more choices, as well as a chance to get out of the dorms to eat.

The metro system was also a topic of discussion in Yedin's campaign. Yedin said the metro, both the buses and subway, should be offered as a form of free transportation to UB students.

"UB sponsors events downtown and it would make sense to have transportation that was free for the students to get there," he said.

Yedin added he looks forward to working with the UB Council to meet the needs of students.

This was the second year online voting was used, and there were few problems with the system this year, according to Wantz. Only two students complained about not being able to vote online, which Wantz believes occurred due to the misinterpretation of directions on the Web site.

"This was pretty big for us," Wantz said. "The online voting system is relatively inexpensive and works well considering the budget isn't big enough to support a large election."