First round votes end in run-off for candidates
By Nellie Williams
News Writer
Emily Keolsch and running mate Rachel Rodarte will be in a runoff election on Wednesday against Crissie Renner and her running mate Michelle Nagle in the race for student body president and vice president of Saint Mary's.
The Renner/Nagle ticket was ahead with 43 percent of the votes, while the Keolsch/Rodarte ticket was right behind with 37.
"We are thrilled," Renner said about the election results. "We still have so much to do. We just want to get everyone pumped up."
Nagle is just as excited.
"It's a wonderful award for such hard work and I'm looking forward to the run-offs."
Keolsch would still like to see more students cast their ballots.
"We'd like to see more voting turnouts — that's an issue for Wednesday," Keolsch said.
"I was happy," said Rodarte. "Honestly, Emily and I expected a runoff. I'm excited we're up against [Renner/Nagle] because we've had a good experience with them and being friends with them makes it easier."
Rodarte and Keolsch plan to campaign more among the student body before the runoffs on Wednesday.
"We're going to go around to residence halls, talk to people and see if anyone has questions," Keolsch said.
"All the leg work on our part is done. It's now up to the student body," said Rodarte.
In other election news, the Bittner/Banahan ticket received 14 percent of the vote, while the Koepke/Hollis ticket earned 3 percent. There were two penalties in the campaign against Koepke/Hollis and Bittner/Banahan for violating campaign rules, but the violations came after the votes were counted.
Thirty-six percent of the student body turned out to vote, compared with 37 percent last year.
"This is a good number — it's what we usually get," said Bridget Heffernan, interim election commissioner. "We expected more votes because we had four tickets, but we're still happy."
The election table was set up in the lower part of the dining hall during breakfast and lunch, and then was moved inside the dining hall for dinner.
"The location was really bad," said Heffernan.
All News Stories for Tuesday, February 1, 2000
