AS election too close to call, runoff vote today

By Tom Sullivan

The general election for Associated Students president, vice president and student senate took place this past Tuesday, and the results were too close to call. There will be a runoff between Sean Brachvogel and Katherine Quinn-Shea and their competitors Andrea Carrera and Katherine Nicholson on Thursday.

In order to be elected to the office of student body president, it is a requirement that the winner must do so by a 20 percent margin. Carrera and Nicholson received approximately 38 percent of the vote, while Brachvogel and Quinn-Shea received about 35 percent of the 1248 total votes. Twenty-four percent of the student body voted in the election, according to an e-mail sent by AS President Rachel Manfre.

The runoff election will be run on eCampus via the same process that took place in the original election on Tuesday.

While the results for AS president and vice president still remain in doubt, several other elections were decided. Christopher Mosier won the race for chair of the student senate. The junior senators are Kelsey Houlihan and Winston Yu. The sophomore senators are Joshua Dunn, Ian Dougherty, Megan Murnane, Nhu-Nguyen Le and Raquel Roque.

Vice presidential nominee Nicholson said there is a perception that AS doesn't impact students' enough to make the vote significant.

"Hopefully next year we can get our accomplishments out there more and hopefully we can improve upon this," she said.

Presidential nominee Carrera said she and Nicholson are running on a multi-level platform.

"The first thing is to improve the positive culture at Santa Clara. Our next goal is to strengthen communication between students and the administration. We want to strengthen the Be Heard process, which is how we get student feedback right now," she said. "Our final platform goal is to increase safety standards around the campus."

Brachvogel and Quinn-Shea said they have some specific goals. "I've been working on a program called Zipcar since my sophomore year on senate. Students can rent cars on an hourly basis. Gas and insurance would be included in the rate," Quinn-Shea said.

Brachvogel said his biggest idea involves medical amnesty. "As the director of the EMT program, I get phone calls every other night in the middle of the night from students off campus and on campus who want medical attention," he said. "But they are too afraid of the punishments they will receive, so they don't seek out the help they need."

Junior Class Chair Sarah Beauchamp said it is important for students to vote.

"It's really important because it's the student body president, and AS does a lot more than students realize," she said. "I think anyone who has a complaint about anything on campus should vote and have their voice heard."

Contact Tom Sullivan at (408) 554-4546 or tsullivan@scu.edu.