By Brendan O’Reilly
After the unopposed incumbents were disqualified, two tickets emerged to provide competition in the Student Government Association presidential election, albeit with an abridged campaign season.
The Brent Weitzberg/Kate Legnetti ticket won the SGA presidential election with 499 votes, twice as many as the sole competing ticket, Shaun Slight/Ian Daly.
On May 2 and 3, 938 students participated in the elections, but 190 abstained from voting for a presidential candidate.
In May 2006, SGA elections took place on the Internet rather than in polling booths for the first time, and there was a record turnout. Participation dropped back down this year, with 1,000 fewer votes cast. Though last year there were five presidential tickets, three more than this election. Also, the campaign season was shortened from two weeks to one.
“The fact that both tickets received such a small number of votes is a reflection not on the candidates themselves, but on the amount of time there was to campaign,” said Legnetti, who was sworn into office on Tuesday. She also credited the “Stop the Vote” campaign with effecting turnout.
Stop the Vote, was started by students who wanted Pete DiSilvio, the 2006 to 2007 SGA president, to be placed on the ballot. He was removed from candidacy when his G.P.A. did not meet the minimum requirement of 2.5. The campaign encouraged students not to participate in the election, because if no presidential ticket received 350 votes a special election would be held in the fall. At that point, presumably, DiSilvio would be eligible.
“We brought students together in a political movement, which I don’t think you see a lot on this campus, especially not for student government elections,” said Art Tebbel, the editor-in-chief of Nonsense humor magazine, and a member of the Stop the Vote campaign. Tebbel said even though the campaign did not achieve its goal, it had an effect. “If you look at the vote counts, the two candidates combined got less than the winning candidate did last year.”
A proposed amendment to the SGA constitution to lower the G.P.A. requirement from 2.5 to 2.25 to accommodate DiSilvio failed in the senate. The question whether the minimum G.P.A. requirement should be lowered was then brought forward as a referendum in this year’s election. More than 83 percent of respondents answered “no,” they do not think that the G.P.A. standard for the presidential ticket should be lowered. “I did not expect it to be flung so far to one side,” said Ashley Kowal, an SGA senator and the sponsor of the referendum. “I thought it would be a little more even keel.”
There were only two other referenda that a majority answered “no” to. One referendum asked if the Rathskeller, a home for sororities and fraternities, should continue to be used in its current function. Of those who responded, 52 percent answered “no,” but 9 percent of students who participated in the elections gave no answer at all to that particular question.
The one referendum that the student body showed a near consensus on is if student groups should have to pay for the use of University facilities. More than 96 percent of respondents said “no.”
The only referendum that is binding, meaning it will force change on the SGA rather than just act as a recommendation, concerned the “primary purpose clause” of the SGA constitution. The clause forbids two clubs with the same purpose from existing under the SGA. Kathleen Hunker, the fundraising committee chairwoman, proposed to the senate an amendment that would exempt news publications from the clause. The proposal failed, but was brought forth as a referendum since the student body may amend the constitution by a two-thirds vote. The referendum passed with 584 votes.
Other referenda with “yes” majorities showed student support for a student-to-student textbook buyback program, prohibiting smoking in front of University buildings, the extension of the hours of operation of the Student Center Café, a more visible recycling program, the establishment of an English honor society, naming the new west pedestrian bridge for a deceased University student, and installing security cameras in all campus parking lots.
All candidates for senate and the judicial panel were approved of by students. Since the SGA allows for 54 senators and five justices, and there were only 41 senate candidates and three justice candidates, anyone who received 50 votes would earn a seat. Every candidate received more than 175 votes. DiSilvio, who ran for a senate seat as a consolation to a presidential campaign, earned the most votes with 397. “It shows that I did something right,” DiSilvio said. “President or not.”
Slight and Daly earned senate seats when their run for executive office failed, though Slight was a member of the judicial panel prior to the elections. As a final act in the office of president, DiSilvio appointed Slight back to the panel.
As Pete DiSilvio recounts the accomplishments of his administration, the incoming vice president and president, Kate Legnetti and Brent Weitzberg, look on. (Jacqueline Hlavenka)