Candidates' fate lie in the hands of senators

By NYRIE KARKAZIAN

After two official written recount requests, the votes cast in last week’s Associated Students election have been finalized.

The recounts for Agriculture, as well as Arts and Humanities senators were held on Monday at 9 a.m. in University Student Union Room 308.

The Arts and Humanities recount produced the same winner — Apryl-Joy Pascua, —but ended in a two-vote difference instead of the initial one vote.

The Agriculture recount produced the same result, a 39-39 tie between Nicole Richardson and Kelly Ansaldo.

The AS senate will break the tie at Thursday’s senate meeting. Each candidate will make a presentation in front of the senate and the senate will vote to break the tie. A simple majority vote will declare the winner.

“[I will tell the senate] what I stand for,” Ansaldo said.

Ansaldo, an agricultural business major, said she has been heavily involved in the agriculture department and was the ambassador for the college of agriculture for two years.

She also said she felt the whole election was successful and was impressed with the voter turnout from the department, as they represented 10.5 percent of the total count.

“Being a leader is what I strive to do,” Ansaldo said.

Richardson was a senator for the department her freshman year and said with all the new faces coming in this year, it would be good to have someone, like her, who is experienced and familiar with the job.

Richardson said she was just getting her feet wet her freshman year and has many new ideas for the department. Her new ideas include getting all the clubs up to date and letting them know what AS can do for them.

“I’m so excited,” Richardson said. “Now I know what I want to do. I have plans.”

Each candidate will have five minutes to approach the senate and present her case. Ideally, election commissioner Deborah Napoleon said, they will talk about what makes them the best person for the job and what they plan to do in the future.

The final number of ballots issued and cast over Wednesday and Thursday of last week totaled 1,332, about 500 fewer than last year’s count of roughly 1,800.

“Unfortunately we still have a lot of apathy on campus,” Napoleon said.

Napoleon said the commission was hoping for more voters this year, but considering they were only given a few months to prepare and get the word out, they did well. Last year’s committee had a staff of 12 people. This year’s staff has only four workers.

“We worked really hard and it was a really busy month and a half,” Napoleon said.

Although the final counts are in, the votes do not become effective until 14 days after the election — a week from Thursday. During this time, the candidates have a chance to challenge the final numbers to a recount.