Foote, Class Action Win in First-Year CCSC Election

Learned Foote, CC ’11 and head of the Class Action party, beat out four competitors to become president of the Columbia College class of 2011.

Although they did not garner a decisive majority, Foote and running mate Tom Amegadzie, CC ’11, secured 204 votes or 42.2 percent, a full 17 percentage points more than their nearest opponent, Real Columbia. The last three tickets each received less than 15 percent of the vote.

Of the three elected representatives, Melissa Im, CC ’11, and Sara Partridge, CC ’11, were also from Class Action. The third, Sean Udell, CC ’11 and from the iColumbia Party, came in with the most ballots at 168 votes or 34.8 percent.

Foote, who is a regular contributor to Spectator, said he plans to spend most of his time planning social events, including a class luau in Uris Pool and a techno party in Carman lounge.

“For first-years, it’s a modest role on student council,” Foote said. “As far as policy goals, we’re going to try to keep it to a small number of feasible things we know we can do.”

Election results, which were scheduled to be announced Thursday night, were not released until Friday morning. Andrew Ness, CC ’08 and chair of the elections board, said Columbia University Information and Technology employees probably forgot to calculate results since they left the office before polls closed at 7:30 p.m.

Polls should have closed at 7 p.m., but the Elections Board extended voting time because a technology error prevented voting from 4 p.m. to about 5 p.m.

Aside from a few glitches and small campaign rules violations, Ness said he was happy with the outcome of the elections. At 47.5 percent of the class, voter turnout was up from last year’s 40 percent. Ness attributed the increase to students being able to vote from their rooms and on Low Plaza, which hadn’t been done in the past.