Hallahan, Ebersol move forward
By MEGHANNE DOWNES
Associate News Editor
The tickets of Charlie Ebersol-Lauren Meagher and Pat Hallahan-Jeremy Lao received the two highest percentages in Monday's student government election and moved on to Thursday's run-off election.
Hallahan-Lao received 27.6 percent of the vote and Ebersol-Meagher received 20.6 percent of the 4,055. The two tickets will square off in a debate Wednesday.
Hallahan said he and Lao intend to continue campaigning and will concentrate on the dorms.
"[The debate] will be a much more conducive setting to getting our message across and it will allow us to showcase our strengths," Hallahan said.
Ebersol and Meagher, who received only 50 more votes than third-place ticket Joe Muto-Mimi Matkowski, said they were excited they made the run-off and looked forward to the debate, where they want to differentiate themselves from Hallahan-Lao.
Ebersol said he was impressed by the voter turnout for Mike Bott-Mike Kirsh and Joe Muto-Matkowski, adding that he intends to work towards gaining their voter support because their tickets were similar to his.
The other tickets, Muto-Matkowski, Bott-Kirsh, Ryan Gagnet-John McCarthy, Drew Updike-Eric Tarnowski and Matt Padberg-David Rail received 19.3, 16.2, 9.7, 3.2 and .5 percent of the vote, respectively.
Matkowski endorsed Hallahan–Lao, saying, "Their personalities and experiences fit what I would like to endorse." Muto said he had not yet made a decision who he would endorse.
Bott said he and Kirsh are not choosing to endorse either of the remaining tickets.
"In some ways we had similar platform ideas but for the most part, our general philosophy differed from both of theirs," Bott said.
McCarthy said he and Gagnet, in the spirit of their campaign, intend to endorse themselves again for next year.
Updike wished both candidates good luck, adding, "Whichever ticket wins the election, both of them are pretty sexy."
Sticking with their single-issue campaign, Padberg said whoever could get more Flex points would garner his campaign's support.
This was the first year students were able to vote online for student government elections. Danielle Ledesma, judicial board council, said there were no reported problems with the voting.
She said there is generally a 40 percent voter turnout and attributed the introduction of online voting to this year's increased turnout of approximately 50 percent.
"I definitely heard a lot of good feedback from students," she said.
All News Stories for Tuesday, February 11, 2003
