Jorge Miranda '01 and Chance Hill '01 were elected Student Assembly President and Vice President, respectively, last night in two remarkably different races.
In an election that saw a decline in voter participation by nearly 500 students from last year's election, Miranda emerged as the landslide winner in the presidential race, defeating his closest competitor, Alex Wilson '01, by more than a 23 percent margin.
Miranda gathered a substantial 47.2 percent of the vote, while Wilson took only 23.3 percent.
In the vice-presidential race the story was different. Hill, earning 44.2 percent of the student vote, defeated Molly Stutzman '02 by a very thin of margin of 2.2 percent.
This year's elections saw 1,714 students vote -- much fewer than in either of last year's elections or in the vote in support of the Assembly response to the Initiative report, which attracted 2,198 and 2,211 voters, respectively.
"I think it is unfortunate that more people did not turn out to vote," Hill said, relieved after his close victory.
In recent months, the Assembly's negative image has been widely debated -- with many students referring to it as a "joke" -- something that likely had an effect on this year's voter turnout.
However, many Assembly leaders said that last year's elections were somewhat unusual, being held in the wake of the release of the Trustees' controversial Five Principles last February.
"Last year was somewhat unusual after the SLI announcement," Miranda said after his victory. "I still wish [this year's turnout] could be higher, but two years ago we only had 1,200."
The campaigning this year also got off to a slow start and did not reach the same level of interest or intensity as last year -- as indicated by the poor turnout at the presidential candidate debate earlier this week, where the number of candidates resembled the number of audience members.
"I think voter turnout would have been better if campaigns had started earlier," Margaret Kuecker '01, current vice president of the Assembly, said.
However, all senior Assembly leaders interviewed by The Dartmouth concurred that the turnout will not affect the legitimacy of the winners.
Congratulating Miranda on his victory, Wilson said, "I think the fact that only 1,600 people voted [for president] is unfortunate. However, I don't think that affects Jorge's legitimacy in any way."
The results closely mirrored those of The Dartmouth's poll -- conducted last weekend -- that showed Miranda cruising off to a smooth victory and predicted a tight vice-presidential race, with Hill leading by a small margin.
Talking to The Dartmouth after their victory, both Miranda and Hill were relieved that the election process was over and said they were excited at the prospects of the Assembly next year.
Miranda said he will be working next year to increase the Assembly's institutional and student voice and tackling minority issues and other issues dealing with the community at large.
"The Assembly is not going to sit back" next year, Miranda said. "It will be active and alive," adding, "If at the end of [next] year students feel their voice actually matters, it will have been a huge accomplishment."
Throughout their campaigns, both Miranda and Hill have been focusing on different sets of campus issues, but they plan to meet one another soon to discuss their visions for next year's Assembly.
"I think that Jorge and Chance have very different ideological backgrounds with regard to the Assembly structure," Kuecker said, adding that this diversity of background will be a positive contribution to next year's Assembly.
Hill said it will be important next year to recruit different types of students to join the Assembly to make it more representative.
Of the 1,681 votes cast for the Assembly president, Meg Smoot won 11.2 percent, with Alex Grishman '01 and Brett Quimby '02 earning 10.9 and 7.4 percent respectively.
Stutzman received 640 votes, compared to Hill's 673, while Jacob Osterhout '02 received 211 out of the 1,524 votes cast in the vice-presidential race.
Although Kuecker did not officially support Smoot or Stutzman, she said she had hoped that either one of the two top-positions was filled by a female.
Similarly, other election results were male-dominated.
Last night, Charles Gussow and Derek Lee were elected 2001 Class Council president and vice president respectively, while incumbents Dan Chang '03 and Carolyn Johnson '03 retained this spots as 2003 Class Council president and vice-president.
Ravi Chopra '01, Tom Denniston '02, Kevin Donahue '02, Raymond Gilliar '01, Jon Sussman '02 and Collin O'Mara '01 were the six students that were elected to the next year's Committee on Standards Committee. Another six students will be chosen by an application process.
Juniors Ed Bialas, Katie Stewart, Jeff Kincaid, Melissa Oliver, Dan Pollock, Jordan Cortez Jason Harris and Shasta Smith were elected Class of 2001 Assembly representatives.
Members of the Class of 2003 elected to next year's Assembly are: Paloma Wu, Jessica Walters, Bill Shields, Michael Perry, Mia Yocco, Taylor Acosta, Daniel Ofer and John Apostolides.
Rising juniors Kendra Quincy Kemp, Taylor French, J.R. Lederer, Melissa Heaton, Dana Polanichka, Forrest Gay, Phil Gerwin are the seven members elected to represent the Class of 2002 in next year's Assembly, while a runoff between Kevin Donahue, Nicholas Rinard and Andrew Sonnenborn at the Assembly's first organizational meeting will decide the eighth member.
Sophomores elected to Greek Key are Tucker Ballard, Tico Blumenthal, Gene Boyle, Robert Camilleri, Hugo Castillo, Anne M. Cloudman, Patrick Coady, Jeff Deck, Anne Delaney, Heidi Ellenbecker, Brendan S. Endicott, Vanessa Green, Kendra Quincy Kemp, Sylvie Liberman, Dana Polanichka, Lauren Smalkowski, Molly Stutzman, Jen Tutak, Josh Warren and Darina V. Zlateva.
-- updated 05/05/00 6:07 p.m.
