Pictured above, Ryan Chen ’24, Ryan Lam ’24, Jacob Kaiser ’24, Daniel Romero ’24, Sakina Cotton ’24, Nor DeHoog ’24, Emelia Yang ’24, and Allie Encarnacion ’24.
The results of the first round of the 2023-2024 Student Body Co-president elections were released on February 14 in an email from Kathryn Dolan, Assistant Dean of Students and Residential Life. One round of ranked-choice voting determined the four out of eight pairs that would advance to the next round of voting: Ryan Chen ’24 and Sakina Cotton ’24, Nor DeHoog ’24 and Ryan Lam ’24, Allie Encarnacion ’24 and Daniel Romero ’24, and Jacob Kaiser ’24 and Emelia Yang ’24.
Dakota Chang ’23, Co-President of Pine Knoll Cluster, commended the number of strong candidates that ran this year. She is especially excited for the further opportunities to get to know them and their ideas.
“Regarding the results, I think this year a lot of the Co-Pres[ident] candidates had really strong platforms, so regardless of the final result, I think they’ll do a really good job. I’m really excited to hear these four pairs of candidates present their platforms during the forum on Sunday in Kemper [Auditorium], I think the four had pretty similar ideas and standpoints, but obviously they each had their unique ideas. So I’m really just thrilled, and I think the rest of the school is, to really see how they’ll navigate the whole process and appeal to the public opinion,” said Chang.
Darla Moody ’24 commented that she was not surprised by the results. To her, the Co-Presidents elections depend on much more than just the platform, the forum, or debate, but rather come from an accumulation of the entirety of the candidates’ time at Andover.
“Year after year, the Co-Pres[ident] results seem almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are a few pairs whom the average person thinks could be finalists, and then no one else gets any votes because people think they won’t win anyways, and this year is no different. I think it proves that the real campaigning is about your previous three years and your partner’s, not so much just the platforms or signatures,” said Moody.
Brandon Fu ’25 noted the ideas that the Co-Presidential candidates listed on their platforms, pointing out some of the proposals that he thought were particularly interesting or creative. He believes that an essential part of the voting process hinges on picking the pair whom the students think will serve the interests of the school the best.
“I think that each of the candidates provided a very unique set of ideas, and in the end the students picked the ones that had the best ideas for the school… I think that it’s really notable that all the pairs of candidates worked really hard, so congratulations to the four who moved on,” said Fu.
A second round of voting to narrow the field down to the final two pairs will take place on February 20.
