This year's elections for student body president and vice president look to be the closest in at least 10 years, as a pre-election poll conducted by The Dartmouth showed presidential candidates Janos Marton '04 and Michael Perry '03 running neck-and-neck just days before the election.
Of the 671 students who responded to the campus-wide survey, 34.5 percent said they planned to vote for Perry while 29.5 percent chose Marton. The five percent difference between the candidates falls within the statistical margin of error.
Among the three other candidates for student body president, Tara Maller '03 received 17.0 percent of the vote, Karim Mohsen '03 won 11.9 percent and Eric Bussey '01 captured 7.1 percent.
The race for student body vice president looks to be even closer, with twin hopefuls Stephanie Bonan '03 and Julia Hildreth '05 garnering nearly identical vote totals.
Respondents were evenly split between the two candidates, with 50.8 percent of students choosing Hildreth and 49.2 percent supporting Bonan. The difference of only 1.6 percent -- the smallest such difference between candidates in recent memory on The Dartmouth's annual poll -- also falls well within the margin of error.
The total number of respondents to the poll -- which was sent out via BlitzMail on Sunday and again yesterday -- declined from last year's figure, but candidates nevertheless said they expect a high turnout for the election, which will officially begin with the opening of online polls tomorrow morning.
"I think it's a far more interesting election with the number of choices voters have to choose from this year," Marton said. "I think there will be an excellent turnout as a result."
Maller agreed that "a lot of different ideas are what the election process is all about," and predicted the many voters who had never before participated might be drawn by the range of candidates.
Despite the closeness of both races, Marton claimed that he and fellow candidates Mohsen and Bussey remain jointly committed to ensuring the victory of a change-minded candidate.
"Depending on results, I'll have to talk with Karim and Eric to make sure that a reform candidate comes out winning," he said.
In the final stages of the campaign, both presidential and vice-presidential candidates said they were concentrating their efforts on speaking with voters individually.
"I'm trying to talk to a lot of people personally," Perry said. "I don't think mass blitzes are really effective at this point."
Hildreth said she plans to "talk to friends and people on various organizations" to get her message out, emphasizing the importance of freshman voters, whom she hoped would turn out to support her.
Mohsen said his support hinges on informing voters "that SA is supposed to be accountable to campus."
"My next two days are going to center around personal approaches," he said. "I want to try to get the personal touch, to reach out to people who haven't traditionally been interested Student Assembly."
Candidates spoke to The Dartmouth before today's release of the poll results.
Candidates will have one final opportunity to deliver their messages to a broader audience, however: a debate is scheduled for tonight at 8 p.m. in 101 Collis, immediately following the Assembly's weekly meeting.
Online voting for candidates for both student body president and vice president as well as other student organizations -- among them the Green Key Society and the Committee on Standards -- will begin tomorrow morning.
