Rossmann, Smith tickets elected; class of 2004 faces run-off election at ND
By JASON McFARLEY
Assistant News Editor
Winning tickets from the classes of 2002 and 2003 notched big victories in Wednesday's class council primary while the election set up a runoff between two tickets on the 2004 ballot.
The Peter Rossmann ticket captured 63 percent of the 2002 vote to comfortably defeat the Becky Hagelin ticket 461-252. In the 2003 race, Matt Smith's ticket carried more than 66 percent of votes on its way to an easy 629-297 win over the Son Nguyen ticket.
In the 2004 contest, which featured seven tickets, the Keri Oxley ticket emerged the clear favorite — leading its nearest challenger by nearly 300 votes — but failed to receive a majority of the 1,140 cast ballots. The Oxley ticket's 469 votes asserted it as the top contender heading into a run-off election Friday against the Brian Adams ticket, which garnered 172 votes Wednesday.
"After covering student government for two years, I'm very excited now to go from a student government outsider to an insider and to serve the Class of 2002," said Laura Rompf, class vice president-elect and an Observer reporter.
Rompf's running mates include president Rossmann, secretary Lisa Sestile and treasurer Chris McConnell.
Rompf said her ticket plans to sponsor a conference to help seniors prepare for life after graduating from Notre Dame and to next fall organize a "Senior O. Weekend," with activities similar to those at Freshman Orientation.
She said in light of the recent deaths of three members of the Class of 2002 to leukemia, the ticket is also planning fund-raising efforts for cancer charities and a bone marrow drive in memory of the students.
Smith, president of the winning 2003 ticket, said his administration's top priority will be keeping abroad students informed of activities at home. He said establishing an abroad chairperson and a monthly newsletter would aid in that goal.
"In the past, students may have been uninformed and left out of a lot of things simply because they were studying abroad," Smith said. "We want to let them know what's going on and keep them involved."
Smith's running mates include vice president Karen Lysaght, secretary Josh Gentine and treasurer Nick Mastronardi.
In the 2003 election, four tickets carried about 80 percent of the vote in the seven-way primary. The Ben Gilfillan and Brian Thomas tickets placed behind Oxley and Adams, collecting 142 and 121 votes, respectively. Chris Holdener received 99 votes, Josh O'Farrell won 83 and Dan Sushinsky earned 48 to round out the field.
Oxley and Adams will compete in a run-off election Friday that also matches two tickets for off-campus co-presidents. Wednesday's primary resulted in a tight contest between the Liz Efta/Kelly Stocker and George Remus/Amy Sellers tickets.
Efta and Stocker's 165 nods gave them a narrow 11-vote lead over Remus and Sellers. The slim margin prompted a recount by judicial council officials, who are required to recount in an election that yields less than a 25-vote margin between top vote-getting candidates. The third ticket of Sarah Schwartz and Kim Fenzl got 90 votes.
Also on Wednesday the off-campus senator election saw Steve Reddy defeat Noel Conneely 185-130.
Tony Wagner, judicial council president, said election turnout was decidedly mixed.
"Turnout varied from dorm to dorm. We expected it to be up in some areas and down in some," Wagner said.
That's despite a referendum that student government representatives were optimistic would spur high turnout.
The Student Senate-sponsored referendum was a parietals survey that appeared on election ballots Wednesday. The ballot issue asked students if they were in favor of extending parietals past midnight on weekdays and ending them before 10 a.m. every day.
"I'm sure there were people who turned out for [the referendum], but there were many people who wanted to vote for the different offices," Wagner said.
The judicial council divided referendum responses by gender Wednesday night but did not tally results, Wagner said.
He said the council would turn the ballots over to the Student Senate.
The surveys will likely go to the senate's Residence Life Committee which drafted the ballot issue.
Late Wednesday night, members of the committee were unavailable for comment.
All News Stories for Thursday, March 1, 2001
