High pressure voting season ends
May 4, 2018
Weeks of digital flyers blasting every social media platform and campaign posters filling every corner of campus came to an end when class officer results came out on April 24.
Two-year class president Megan Young was re-elected to lead class of 2019’s senior year.
“It was a moment of disbelief, I guess. It took me a while to really take it in because it was really hard,” Young said.
Speculation about a possible leak of poll numbers circulated after numerous members of USB picked up their campaigning efforts in a sudden push toward the end of the election.
Several Diamond Bar High school students were approached to vote during the last week of elections as they were leaving campus after school.
“I remember there was a group of about 14 people at the top of the staircase. As I was coming up, about five of them turned over and looked at me and was like, ‘Oh, have you voted already? Remember to vote for Megan!’” junior Quinn Green said. “I didn’t want to say anything because I already felt pressured… they had USB uniforms on.”
According to DBHS Activities Director Janna Van Horn, students are not permitted access to voting numbers before the election window is closed.
“Any ‘leak’ is a rumor as far as I’m concerned,” Van Horn said via email.
The rest of next year’s senior class officer board consists of vice president Victor Chai, secretary and treasurer Andy Tsai, social chairperson Kyle Lew and historian Jessica Woo.
“One thing I heard during the election was that people want to be more involved with the class and because of that I wanted to incorporate something [next year] that USB does,” Young said. “It’s called roundtables where everyone just sits there and everyone gives their ideas of what they want, opinions whether good or bad.”
As for the incoming juniors, sophomore Jennifer Nie was reelected class of 2020 president after running unopposed.
“I think it’s a lot easier on me and that I’m actually doing my job because I feel like if a lot of people ran against me then I feel like people are saying, ‘you’re not doing your job right,’” she said.
For the remaining junior officer board, Michael Cheng took the seat of vice president, Rachel Yang was elected secretary and treasurer, Eugene Liang became social chairperson and Eryn Lau was voted historian.
Freshman Daniel Min will take on the role of class of 2021 president with Derek Shiu as his vice president. Philip Ma was also elected secretary and treasurer, Chris Tan for social chairperson and Momoe Tamida for historian.
According to Van Horn, 34.2 percent of the junior class, 33 percent of sophomores and 32.9 percent of freshmen made up a total tally of 1,265 votes during the first election round. The final runoffs, however, saw junior participation spike to 52.2 percent while percentages for the two other classes remained the same.
