W&M Students Choose New Assembly Leaders

By Ian Brickey, of the W&M Flat Hat Thursday, April 01, 2010

After glitches and delays caused a two-hour extension of the College of William and Mary’s Student Assembly elections, Chrissy Scott ’11 defeated Ben Brown ’11 and Jessee Vasold ’11 to become the next SA president.

By the time the polls closed just before midnight Wednesday, Scott and Kaveh Sadeghian ’12 had garnered 40.84 percent of the vote with 1,324 ballots cast — defeating second place finisher Brown by nearly four percent.

Sadeghian, who had no prior SA experience, said that the news was particularly surreal.

“Someone in the other room was like, ‘Dude, you won,’” he said. “I’m in Student assembly now. Wow.”

Scott said that she appreciated the hard work of her entire campaign staff and supporters.

“Our supporters really came out strong today,” she said. “I couldn’t be more thankful for everyone who supported us throughout this whole thing.”

The results came after a two-hour delay initiated by the SA elections commission in response to difficulty voting among some students.

Brown and Betty Jeanne Manning ’12 placed second with 36.49 percent of the vote, or 1,183 ballots cast, while Vasold and Caitlin Goldblatt ’11 finished in third place with 20.39 percent of the vote, or 661 ballots cast. Write-in candidates received 2.28 percent of the vote, or 74 ballots.

Sadeghian said that their campaign reached people not traditionally involved or interested in the SA.

“This just goes to show the importance of dedication and loyalty,” he said. “I think we got an entire base of people finally involved in the SA that had never really been involved before.”

According to Sadeghian, the direction of the campaign mirrored its visions for the College.

“We didn’t direct the campaign necessarily, we just motivated people,” Sadeghian said. “That’s the whole purpose of our campaign — delegating and empowering people.”

With the campaign over, Scott said that she and Sadeghian would focus on implementing their platform.

“One of the things that we’ve been focusing on throughout this whole thing was just really empowering groups through the Student Assembly,” Scott said. “There are so many passionate people on this campus, and we really want the Student Assembly to be a support for them.”

Sadeghian said that the main goal of the new administration would be to connect student organizations across the College.

“The Student Assembly is meant to look over every other organization at William and Mary,” he said. “I don’t know what other organization is available to connect a group that’s doing ‘A’ and a group that’s doing ‘B’ — they’ve never met each other, but they essentially have the same goals.”

For Sadeghian, connection and communication is just one of many possible changes in SA culture.

“The potential of Student Assembly is huge,” he said. “How do we make this grow? What’s the next step?”

The SA elections commission also released the results of the other elections shortly after the voting deadline passed.

Referendum highlights
The referendum to subsidize Sexually Transmitted Infection testing through the Student Health Center passed with 77.51 percent, or 2,513 votes.

The referendum to provide subsidized flu shots free of charge passed with 81.59 percent of the vote, or 2,645 ballots.

The program to provide free copies of the New York Times to student at the College failed to pass with 64.19 percent of votes against.

A similar program to provide free copies of the Virginia Gazette to students also failed to pass with 75.29 percent of votes against.

A non-binding referendum supporting the abolition of the College’s Honor Council failed with 75.32 percent of the vote against.

A non-binding referendum expressing no confidence in the SA also failed with 58.20 percent of the vote against.