After two long days of campaigning, the Red and Moderate Green parties have finally returned to their normal mid-week routines, but with an air of anticipation hanging over their heads for tonight’s election results announcement.The Spinnaker spent March 6 and 7 gathering exit poll results at the polls and online, and can safely call the Red party the winner of the 2012 Student Government presidential elections. Red party presidential candidate Carlo Fassi said his platforms and team of senators were key to increasing Red Party voters during the campaign.“The initiatives that we are proposing, students liked. Who wouldn’t say no to free printing? That’s basically money going back into your pocket,” Fassi said.
Voter turnout was high in 2012, with the 3223 voters surpassing 2011’s numbers by 64 votes despite smaller initiative from the presidential campaigns than in the past.
“I think turnout was great. There wasn’t as much political pressure to bring voters out, I think a lot of voters came out for the promotions, the free food we were giving away, but I’m really glad the number of students that came out and voted came out and voted,” said Elections Supervisor Joel Versace.
Neither party said they would file violation complaints, although Moderate Green presidential candidate John Fails said he considered filing, but decided not to in order to preserve the integrity of the election.
“There were some things that we thought was somewhat questionable, but we are ready for this thing to take its proper course,” Fails said.
Going into tonight’s election results ceremony, both candidates are confident in their chances. Neither had seen the Spinnaker poll results before speaking on their confidence.
“You never know. I’m never over confident or cocky. We’ll see how it goes,” Fassi said.
Fails also remains confident, putting his chances at about fifty-fifty.
“It’s kind of exciting because I don’t know, but it’s kind of intimidating because I don’t know, but that’s how an election goes,” he said.
The unofficial final election results will be announced at 5:10 p.m. tonight in the Senate chambers. Stay with unfspinnaker.com for the final results.
