This year's election, which featured just two vice presidential and three presidential candidates, all of whom campaigned on similar issues, failed to capture the interest of the student body -- only 1,259 students cast votes for candidates.
"I didn't think [the election] was something important, and I didn't know anything about the candidates," said Kevin Colan '98, who did not cast a ballot.
Karen Walp '01 said she chose not to vote because she did not think the choice of candidates would have an impact on her time at Dartmouth.
"I didn't know anything about them, and I don't think it affects me much," she said.
Many students who did vote cited character, rather than campus issues, as the reasons why they selected their candidate.
"[Josh Green] was the only candidate I had met," Lubna Ammar '01, who cast her vote for Green, said. "I wasn't very informed when I was voting."
Tim Paine '99 said he voted for President-elect Josh Green '00 and Case Dorkey '99 because he "recognized their names."
"I wasn't a very informed voter," he said. Paine said he usually has more information about the candidates.
Evan Hoffman '01, who said he could not remember the candidates he had voted for, said he chose the candidates based on the recommendations of The Dartmouth and what he read about their platforms.
Assembly members speculated that this year's shortened campaigns were responsible for the lack of student interest.
"Even I didn't know about [the elections] until a week ago," Assembly member Athena Lentini '01 said.
Lentini said students' "apathy" may be due partly to Dartmouth's relative isolation.
"There's nothing else out there," she said. "Apathy just grows."
But Lentini said that, despite the low turnout, students had chosen the most capable candidate as Student Assembly president.
"Josh was the best candidate for the job," she said. "He's the only one who could hold down the fort."
Vice President-elect Case Dorkey said the unusually low turnout did not come as a surprise -- he did not anticipate many students would cast their votes for Student Assembly vice president.
"I expected [the number of votes] to be low because it wasn't a competitive election," said Dorkey, who was up against a candidate campaigning on behalf of the Jack-O-Lantern humor society.
Dorkey said his campaign aggravated the problem because he was not motivated to encourage students to vote.
"I'm friends with a good number of people who don't usually vote, and I could have made more of an effort to reach out," Dorkey said.
Collin O'Mara '01, the Assembly's communications chair, said the number of Dartmouth students who vote is comparable to the number who cast ballots at other Ivy League schools.
"Percentage-wise, we're not that bad," he said.
Presidential candidate Dan Rygorsky '99 said he has doubts about the students' choice of Green as president.
He said idealist Green will most likely continue the ambitious attempts at reform of current Assembly president Frode Eilertsen '99.
Rygorsky, who, if elected, planned to concentrate more on student services than former co-chair of the Visions Committee Green, said he may have set more realistic goals for the body.
"I think it would have made a difference," he said in an interview with The Dartmouth last night. "I wish I could have been there to campaign more but it just wasn't feasible."
But Green said the activities of the Student Assembly, not his victory margin, will shape students' perceptions of the Assembly.
"The new Assembly will be judged based on the work it does, not how much a particular candidate won by," he said.
