Kaydee Bridges (SFS ‘03) and Mason Ayer (SFS ‘03) won a convincing victory in Monday’s Georgetown University Student Association presidential elections. Over 45 percent of students participated in this year’s online election, a nine percent increase from last year.
The Bridges-Ayer ticket received 894 votes, over 300 more than the first runners-up, Adi Kumar (CAS ‘03) and Rob Hutton (SFS ‘04). Bridges and Ayer will take office on Feb. 19 and replace current executives, Ryan Dubose (CAS ‘02) and Brian Walsh (CAS ‘02).
Students also voted overwhelmingly in Monday’s referendum to keep GUSA as the student governing body. Of the 2,164 students who cast valid online votes, 1,636 voted to keep the GUSA structure and 528 voted to replace it with the Constitution of The Yard, which would have brought about an alternative undergraduate governing structure.
According to Bridges, the type of campaign she and Ayer ran made them confident about the election.
“I think what made us most confident was [going] door-to-door,” Bridges said. “Being out and meeting people is the best way for them to want to vote for you.”
Ayer said that he looks forward to beginning his tenure as GUSA vice-president.
“I’m really excited. We really hope we can get done everything we laid out in our platform,” he said.
Bridges expressed hope that her victory would encourage more women to get involved in campus leadership positions.
“I think its really important for women at Georgetown to be able to see another woman in a position like president of the student body,” Bridges said. “I hope this is a chance for women at Georgetown to apply for appointed positions and run for representatives.”
Ayer said that he was uncertain about how the election would turn out before Monday night. “Adi [Kumar] and Rob [Hutton]’s presence was huge,” Ayer said. “You can’t count anybody out.”
Bridges and Ayer said that they were satisfied the results of The Yard referendum. During the campaigns, the Bridges-Ayer ticket spoke out against The Yard referendum, saying that the proposed Yard funding system would hurt smaller clubs.
“I’m not surprised one bit that it failed,”Ayer said. “I didn’t want to have to try to implement that.”
Each of the other four presidential tickets vocally expressed serious reservations about The Yard during last week’s campaign. The Hoya, The Independent and The Voice published editorials urging students to vote against the Yard referendum.
“I expected a significant ‘no’ vote,” said Senior Class Committee Chair Aaron Polkey (CAS ‘02), who co-founded Students Against The Yard last year, “but I didn’t expect it to be this much.”
According to Polkey, negative campaign tactics were in part responsible for The Yard’s failure. Yard proponents chose to use an “anti-GUSA, not a pro-Yard campaign,” he said.
If the referendum had passed, The Yard Student Association would have replaced GUSA as the undergraduate governing body, and Bridges and Ayer would have become the first Yard executives.
Last month, Yard proponents presented GUSA’s Constitutional Council with a valid petition to signed by over 1,700 students. The petition effectively called for the dissolution of GUSA. Because over one-fifth of the undergraduate student body had signed the petition, students University-wide were able to vote on the referendum on Feb. 11.
Peter Freeman (SFS ‘02) who co-chairs Seniors for The Yard, said he believes efforts to reinstitute The Yard?which governed Georgetown undergraduates before 1969?will continue in the future.
“Student government needs to be reformed,” Freeman said. “GUSA just isn’t working.”
Current GUSA President Dubose disagreed, saying that GUSA does not need to be replaced.
“It’s not to the point where it needs to be totally scrapped,” Dubose said. “I think that there are little things that can be done to make a big difference. I think with what we have and the people we have here, it can work.”
Dubose sent out an e-mail to the senior class Sunday night, just hours before voting began. In the e-mail, he explained why he felt that students should vote against The Yard. DuBose clarified that his personal comments were not meant to represent the views of GUSA as a whole.
“It was just kind of our last effort. We were just trying to get information out,” Dubose said. “We didn’t believe that we were getting GUSA’s side out.”
Bridges said that she had concerns about the school-wide e-mails. “I think the mass e-mails that were sent out to the student body could have been done in a better way,” Bridges said.
In addition to Dubose’s e-mail, students also received e-mails from other students asking them to vote against The Yard.
“I believe that we really were for the most part just stating the facts,” said GUSA Representative Anthony Marinello (CAS ‘04), who e-mailed the sophomore class.
If implemented, The Yard Student Association would have comprised three separate representative bodies: The Yard Assembly, which would meet once a semester and be open to all students; The Yard Commons, which would include one representative from each of Georgetown’s on-campus organizations; and The Yard Council, The Yard executive body which would include the Yard executives and representatives from The Yard Commons.
Polkey said that Yard proponents didn’t get into the specifics of The Yard Constitution, and that they “grossly miseducated” first-year students, who he said were confused about The Yard’s structure.
Freeman said that lies were told about The Yard by “anonymous” students, which contributed to the high “no” vote totals. He also said GUSA designed a poor e-mail ballot for the referendum. Students had to scroll down through the entire Yard Constitution before finding the referendum question to be voted on. Freeman said he had originally designed an e-mail ballot that had the referendum question listed at the top.
Bridges had similar concerns about the ballot layout. The referendum question, she said, was not easy for students to find because it was placed between the written Yard Constitution at the top and information from Saxa Server at the bottom.
Freeman said the results of the referendum were shocking to him.
“I’m very, very surprised,” Freeman said, referring to the fact that students voted over 3 to 1 against the referendum. “We definitely got a better reception than the numbers show.”
Kumar and Hutton came in second place on Monday with 542 votes. Trey Street (SFS ‘03) and Dan Spector (CAS ‘04) placed third with 425 votes. Robert Wingate-Robertson (MSB ‘03) and Vinoda Basnayake (MSB ‘03) received 414 votes, and Matt Brennan (SFS ‘04) and Sean Hawks (CAS ‘04) netted 357 votes.
