Thanks to outgoing commissioner Aaron Golds (COL ’11), Georgetown’s Jesuit and Residential Life communities, and our university’s support, I was elected Georgetown’s student representative to Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E on Tuesday. Yet, due to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics and neighbors’ successful gerrymander of our ANC districts, I did so by receiving only six votes.

This measly vote count is not, as some might argue, an indictment of student engagement or an indication of a lack of trust in my campaign. Instead, it is just further evidence that the District of Columbia fails to meet the needs of the college students that make up an eighth of its population.

In this case, it is the DCBOEE that has most clearly failed us. Despite being the historical address of record for Georgetown University and the one that many students use as their permanent D.C. address, the DCBOEE decided this year that 3700 O St. is not within single-member District 4, the district to which I was elected and the district that covers the majority of Georgetown’s campus. Rather, it is within District 3, which spans West Georgetown and includes the residences of some of the university’s most vehement critics. Jesuits, faculty-in-residence and ResLife staff that live on-campus but receive mail off-campus are similarly swept into the third district.

The DCBOEE has further suppressed student turnout by making it difficult for them to same-day register. It was reported Wednesday in American University’s newspaper The Eagle that many students attempting to register to support “A Voice 4 U,” AU’s coordinated campaign to gain student representation on their ANC, were turned away because print-outs of their housing assignments did not meet DCBOEE criteria for proving residency. Unfortunately, students often have little other documentation with which to do so.

This, when coupled with the ANC gerrymandering well-covered on the most recent editorial page of The Hoya (“Stifling the Student Vote,” Nov. 2, 2010, A2), emphasizes the underrepresentation that D.C. students face and helps explain why students have historically held only one of the city’s 286 ANC seats, despite making up almost 13 percent of its population.

It is because of my frustration with this underrepresentation that I chose to seek ANC office and overcome these obstacles. Due to its pressing nature, my first step toward this goal will be lending my voice of support to Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan. Despite neighbors’ accusations to the contrary, the plan is a fair one that finds a middle ground between Georgetown’s imperative as an elite university to expand its academic and financial resources as well as the neighborhood’s understandable concern for the maintenance of their residential way of life.

In the long term, I have two goals for my tenure on the ANC: to improve student safety and to make the ANC more transparent and accessible to students and student groups. To the first point, it is an unfortunate reality that many of the crimes committed in our community are sexual assaults, a majority of which target Georgetown students. Although such crimes happen everywhere, it is a falsehood to say that we cannot do more to prevent them. Burleith, and even parts of West Georgetown, are terribly lit at night. Our Emergency Station program is in dire need of off-campus expansion. Expanded Metropolitan Police Department details should not just patrol our area on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, they should be used in a way that prioritizes student safety every night of the week.

I also hope to work with students to get them more engaged in the ANC process. ANC meetings can be tedious, but student representation has the potential to immensely change that dynamic and lead to policies that are far more favorable for students. In order to ensure that students are aware of these opportunities, I plan to work with both administrators and student groups like D.C. Students Speak, an organization working to expand student representation throughout the District.

More than anything, though, it is my hope that I can help remedy the underrepresentation that so plagues students in D.C. With the continued help and support of Georgetown’s population, I am confident that I will be able to do just that.

Jake Sticka is a sophomore in the College and commissioner-elect on Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, which represents Georgetown.