In Final Hours of UC Campaign, Candidates Seek to Extend Reach

With less than a day left for students to vote in the Undergraduate Council election, presidential and vice presidential hopefuls have taken to social media and door-to-door campaigning to promote their candidacies.

The campaign, which officially began last Wednesday, has featured four tickets running to be next year’s UC leaders: Scott Ely ’18 with running mate Evan M. Bonsall ’19, Eduardo A. Gonzalez ’18 with running mate Alex Popovski ’19, Yasmin Z. Sachee ’18 with running mate Cameron K. Khansarinia ’18, and Grant S. Solomon ’18 with running mate Alexander T. Moore ’18.

Four tickets are running for the presidency and vice presidency of the Undergraduate Council. They faced off at the Crimson's annual Crossfire debate this past Friday. By Derek G. Xiao

During the election cycle, all four tickets have set up websites and Facebook pages to promote their campaigns and encourage students to vote. At least one ticket has an active Twitter account, and multiple tickets have used Facebook’s paid post-boosting service to promote their campaign pages.

Several students said they would not have known the election was happening had it not been for activity on social media.

“I didn't know it was happening until people started posting pictures on Facebook,” Max O. Lesser ’19 said, referring to several campaigns which have encouraged students to change their profile pictures in support of their preferred candidate.

Despite efforts to reach out to students, some students said they still did not know what distinguished the tickets from one another. Christopher Colby ’19 said he would not vote in part because he did not know how any ticket would affect his life.

“I don’t feel informed enough,” Colby, who transferred to Harvard this year from Dartmouth, said.

Several candidates and supporters have taken to knocking on doors across campus to talk to students and encourage them to vote. While some students said room visits from candidates helped to inform their decisions, others said they did not find the visits helpful.

“I honestly find that pretty annoying,” Lesser said. “I just feel like my room is a place where I go to relax, do work, focus, get away from the greater Harvard community.”

Many candidates have also chosen to deliver flyers to rooms across campus to promote their campaign. One flyer, distributed by Sachee and Khansarinia, generated some controversy. The flyer claims that theirs is “the only ticket that has” plans for certain campus issues—from bringing social life to common rooms to training each student in sexual assault prevention every year.

“Apparently Yaz and Cam don't consider us a ticket! We have the last three of those [plans],” Solomon and Moore wrote on their Facebook page Tuesday, in response to the flyer.

Khansarinia explained that the flyer was not meant to diminish other candidates’ platforms, but just to emphasize his ticket’s tangibility-focused platform.

“The intention was simply to highlight differences,” Khansarinia said. “It's a plan, it’s not just an idea. Conversations are already happening.”

Many UC representatives expressed optimism about the election, praising the experience and platforms of many of the candidates.

“We'll be in good hands no matter what,” Elm Yard representative Henry S. Atkins ’20 said.

More than 2,500 students have voted in the election as of Wednesday evening, according to the UC’s election website. Voting is open online until noon on Thursday, and the winners of the election will be announced by Thursday evening.

—Staff writer Brian P. Yu can be reached at brian.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @brianyu28.