This time Soda Popinski and Respectable Dildo aren’t options.
In the runoff elections today for Associated Student Government executive positions, no write-in candidates are allowed. Campuswide elections for president, executive vice president, academic vice president and student services vice president will keep the same format as Tuesday’s elections, with students voting online from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The election Web site is linked from HereAndNow.
Two candidates eliminated in Tuesday’s election have endorsed former opponents who are behind heading into the runoffs. Eileen Keeley endorsed Jason Lake over Tiffany Berry for student services vice president, and Ben Cherry endorsed Nicole Mash over Sadiya Farooqui for executive vice president.
As of late Wednesday night, Courtney Brunsfeld, who did not attend the Senate meeting, had not decided to support either Bassel Korkor or Rachel Lopez for president.
At the Senate meeting Wednesday, Ebo Dawson-Andoh, outgoing academic vice president, thanked the write-in candidates, including “the lovable, huggable Respectable Dildo,” for giving him another week in office.
The academic race was expected to be decided Tuesday night because there were only two candidates running – and therefore seemingly no chance for a runoff. But about 10 percent of voters threw their weight behind write-ins, giving neither Tamara Kagel nor Mike Fong the 50 percent majority they needed.
Kagel said she was not so amused as Dawson-Andoh.
“At this point, the whole write-in candidate thing is pretty annoying,” said Kagel, a Speech sophomore. “It just means I have to work that much harder to make these students care about what ASG is doing.”
Fong said he planned to call Soda Popinski, a write-in candidate based on Nintendo’s “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!” who received 43 votes in Tuesday’s election, to ask for his endorsement Wednesday night. Popinski and his campaign manager Brian Librot, a Speech sophomore, called both Fong and Kagel to concede the race late Tuesday.
“I’m going to call Soda back tonight, and hopefully he’ll throw his support behind me,” said Fong, a Weinberg sophomore.
Librot, who sponsored Popinski’s candidacy, said he does not anticipate endorsing either Fong or Kagel. He called the whole experience an “exercise in active apathy.”
A message on his pubweb account late Wednesday said Popinski endorsed Fong.
“It’s been a fun ride the whole way,” Librot said. “Look out for another resurgence from the same group of political idiots next year.”
In past elections, candidates backed by eliminated competitors have come from behind after the first round of elections to win in runoffs.
In 1999’s presidential election, Evil Dave Sheldon closed a 20 point gap to win a runoff with 54 percent after receiving endorsements from two of the three eliminated candidates.
