With polls opening this morning, Frode Eilertsen '99 appears poised to win the Student Assembly presidency in a landslide, according to a poll taken by The Dartmouth over the weekend. Dave Altman '99 holds a more narrow, although sizable, lead over write-in candidate Nahoko Kawakyu '99 in the race for vice president.
Of the 564 students who responded to the survey, 53.7 percent said they currently intend to vote for Eilertsen -- giving him a more than 40-point lead over Scott Jacobs '99 (12.1 percent) and write-in candidates Unai Montes-Irueste '98 (9.6 percent) and Kathy Kim '00 (6.2 percent).
With substantial leads in all four classes, Eilertsen holds an edge which could give him the biggest landslide victory in recent history.
The survey was sent via electronic-mail to 4,080 students between Friday morning and Sunday night -- and 564 answered, a response rate of 13.8 percent.
The Dartmouth attempted to make its ballot as similar to the actual ballot as possible -- it included Altman's, Eilertsen's and Jacobs' names but not Kawakyu, Kim, Montes-Irueste or Ben Oren '00, who are all running as write-in candidates. The Dartmouth's ballot left a space for write-in candidates.
In the vice-presidential race, Altman holds a solid but not insurmountable 15-point lead over Kawakyu.
Altman (38.1 percent) is the only vice-presidential candidate whose name will appear on the ballot. Of the respondents, 23.4 percent indicated they would vote for Kawakyu, despite the fact she is a write-in candidate.
No write-in candidate has ever won an office on the Assembly.
The vice-presidential race could be greatly affected by those students who were undecided at the time of the poll.
While only 2.7 percent of prospective voters said they were undecided about the presidential race, 10.3 percent said they were not sure which vice-presidential candidate to vote for.
Though the poll indicates that Altman appears to be the favorite, Kawakyu did show solid support from all four classes.
Jacobs received virtually no support from the respondents from the Classes of 1997 and 1998. Most of Jacobs' support appears to have come from '99s and '00, although Eilertsen still showed a commanding lead among those students.
Kim and Oren -- running together on an informal ticket -- received more than 90 percent of their votes from members of the Class of 2000. Oren received 7.4 percent of the vice-presidential vote.
The most popular combination of candidates was Eilertsen-Altman followed by Eilertsen-Kawakyu.
Montes-Irueste did not receive nearly as much support as Kawakyu, although they are running on an informal ticket.
