Write-ins add different twist to SA campaign
By Katy O'donnell, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006
As the candidates for student body president and vice president enter their sixth day of campaigning, two students have attempted to make press in an unorthodox way as write-in presidential candidates. Tim Andreadis '07 and Raj Koganti '08 both decided to run after observing the campaigns of Chrissie Chick '07, Adam Patinkin '07 and Dave Zubricki '07.
Andreadis said he is running because he is dissatisfied with the level of debate thus far and wants to bring more controversial and important issues to the table.
"Three candidates really isn't enough for debate," he said. "The candidates weren't discussing controversial enough issues. People running try to appease everyone and a lot of the debate gets dumbed down."
EPAC member Adam Shpeen '07 noted that write-in candidates typically have a harder time getting votes during elections.
"Most of the write-in candidates that I can remember have just been jokes until this year," Shpeen said. "I really can't remember a viable write-in candidate. I've never seen one win."
The Elections Planning and Advisory Committee also issued four tier-one sanctions to Chick, Jacqueline Loeb '08, Zak Moore '09 and Ruslan Tovbulatov '09 because they filed their campaign receipts and expenditure sheets after Tuesday's 4 p.m. deadline.
"We decided to only give them tier-one sanctions because so many candidates misunderstood the deadline and we want to keep more of a hands-off attitude," said EPAC chair Paul Heintz '06, who is also a member of The Dartmouth staff.
"Any further lateness will result in much more serious sanctions. We're serious about the campaign finance rules."