Hruza, Campbell square off in final battle |
| Posted by Administrator on Mar 12 2008 at 2:39 PM |
Freshman Emily Richter and senior Alisha Shelz stop by to have their voices heard in UNK's 2008 Elections. Voters had their right thumb marked with a substance that could only be seen under blacklight to ensure that voters could only vote once.
By Vicki Althage
Antelope Staff
With last week's student body president elections leaving no clear winner, Tim Hruza and Grant Campbell square off Wednesday to settle the score.
Hruza and Campbell finished first and second, respectively, in the general election with the Salinas/Ackerman campaign falling short of the run-off requirement.
The run-off is set to take place Wednesday March 12 in the Student Union and HPER, The Student Union booth will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and the booth in HPER will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The general election did not succeed in fulfilling the requirements the Board of Regents have imposed on the position, said Amber Lewis, current Student Body President.
"The Board of Regents policy 2.8.1c states that the Student Body President/Regent must 'be elected by a majority vote of the students voting in the election or be elected by a margin over the next higher candidate of at least ten percent of the total votes cast for eligible candidates.' Simply stated, to win a candidate must get 51 percent of the votes," Lewis said.
Of the 951 ballots cast, Hruza came out on top with 389 votes giving him 41 percent support, just 10 percent shy of the needed 51 percent.
Campbell finished behind Hruza with 303 votes or 32 percent. Salinas ended his campaign winning over the votes of 259 students giving him 27 percent of the overall vote.
Lewis has chosen not to endorse a particular candidate for the election and has instead made herself available to help all candidates with their campaigns. "It would be tough to endorse one. All three candidates bring a uniqueness to the ballot," Lewis said.
Daphne Darter, an election booth volunteer, says this election has been neck and neck. "The candidates have tools like Facebook this year to help them get their platforms out there," said the Lincoln senior.
The competition is expected to be stiff between Hruza and Campbell, and communication tools like Facebook, MySpace and text messaging may play a pivotal role in the outcome of the election.
The procedure for the paper ballots will be the same as the general election and will have the same checks and balances to ensure that no student casts more than one allotted vote.
Each election station is manned with volunteers like Darter who mark student's hands with a special liquid that will only show up under the lights at each booth. Voters names are then checked off both manually from a list provided by the registrar and electronically on GMail so that both elections booths have up-to-date voting information, said Election Commissioner Brandon Pettigrew. Lewis believes the paper ballots lead to more educated votes and hopes for a high turnout.
