2 Congress Seats Still Open After O'Brien Re-elected

Upon being re-elected, O'Brien said he might have aspirations of filling a soon-to-be vacant speaker position.

The election, which took place from 7 a.m to 10 p.m on Student Central, was only for districts 16, 19 and 21, which were affected by the glitch Tuesday. O'Brien will represent District 19. No votes were cast for candidates in districts 16 and 21.

Brian Fauver, Board of Elections chairman, said that 71 total ballots were cast in District 19 but that because computer problems only seven of them were from students in the correct district.

Kristin Taylor from District 16 and Ben Davidson of District 19 resigned after the Nov. 14 Congress meeting.

Rob Godfrey was elected to District 21 on Sept. 24 but was expelled on Oct. 15 for attending only one Congress meeting.

Few votes also were cast for the winners of Tuesday's special election. Sophomore Sarah Marske was elected to District 12 with six votes; Nathaniel Cadle, a graduate student, was elected to District 5 with five votes; and junior Bill Teeter was elected to District 20 with three votes.

Officials said that 105 students were counted as voting in Tuesday's election but that most of those votes were not actually cast. Fauver said that the software glitch counted all those students who entered the voting section of Student Central as having cast votes.

Fauver said that because of Thursday's computer error on Student Central, students did not know whether they were eligible to vote in their district. He added that officials will be working to correct the problem.

O'Brien said he quickly accepted his election to his Congress seat. O'Brien, who earlier in the year had to resign from Student Congress for moving out of his original district, said he was excited about being re-elected. "I was anxious for the election," he said. "I've been very excited about the prospect of being back on Student Congress."

O'Brien also said he is seriously considering running for Congress' speaker position for next semester. Tony Larson, the current speaker, is graduating at the end of the semester.

"I'm going to look into the idea and see if I'm ready," he said. "I've only had a short absence (from Congress), so I haven't lost my place."

But O'Brien also showed some reservations about running. "There are a lot of really good candidates besides me," he said. "I'm going to have to take a step back and look at who's running. I'll talk to them and see what's best."

Congress will elect a speaker at its Tuesday meeting. But O'Brien added that if quorum is not met, then the election won't be held until January.

Although the Student Code requires the student body president to call special elections until all seats are filled, Larson said that there probably will not be another election for districts 16 and 21.

"I don't imagine we will have another special election," he said. Larson added that the spaces likely will be filled during the general election in February.

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.