Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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%,i WWW OAMEOOenrEDu"" " . ^ UNIVERSITY OF.SOUTH CAROLINA . _ ' COLUMBIA "$ c"" Jacquelyn Poston The Gamecock Friends congratulate SGVIce President-elect Corey Ford after hearing of his victory shortly after 9:30 pjn. Thursday. Ford elected vice president w by Patrick Rathbun Assistant News Editor Corey Ford, a liberal arts sopho more, won die nomination for the vice presidential position in Student Gov ernment, gamering 1,421 votes Thurs day night. After his victory was announced, Ford said he felt great. “1 feel awesome,” he said. “This is an unbelievable feeling.” Ford then said the difference in his campaign lay in the “coalition of sup port that we had among the groups here on campus.” “We really wanted to get a whole bunch of student organizations behind us, and we had a good grass roots effort on election day,” he said. Ford said his biggest priority in of 4* lice is to gel students involved with SG. “The way we [gel students in volved] is to keep going back to the student organizations, holding forums to get the students to come out and voice their concerns,” he said. “Hope fully, we can spark that interest in them and we can increase student activism here on campus.” Vice presidential candidate and so cial work graduate student Elliot Smith, who received 564 votes, came in sec ond in the race. “The people have spoken,” he said. “People couldn’t have made a bad choice in this campaign.” Sophomore Dan Dixon, who fin ished third with 346 votes, said he thought that all the candidates did well in their campaigns. “1 tliink we went out and did great campaigns,” he said. “Corey Ford came out on top. You win some, you lose some." International studies sophomore Tom Winslow, who finished fourth in the race with 282 votes, expressed a similar view. “The best man won,” he said. “I respect Corey a lot.” Smith said lie’s hopeful that Ford will be successful in office. “I’m hoping that lie’ll follow through with all his promises,” Smith said. “If he’s going to institute the things he proposed in his candida cy, then he’ll do an excellent job as vice president.” Winslow also said he had high Ford see page 2 Science and Mathematics m Rebecca Ann Payne 189 Becky Floyd 179 Lauren Vaughn 176 Chris Odom 175 Kristen Heatheriy 164 Jennifer Poon 151 Applied Professions Leigh Edmonds 98 Jcb Bush 88 Rick Comisky 83 Liberal Arts Brian Hunter 296 Charaka C. Cook 273 Faiyaz Dossaji 265 Austin Brown 259 Chrissy Stauffer 249 gSara Mareno 237 -cssica CM Lcntini 229 Nathan A. Brown 212 Business Administration Tiffany Elser 302 Hydrick Harden 279 Jessica Murphy 274 Justin R. Brown 270 Danny Cooper 270 Tranaka Oglesby 254 Sherccf El-Ibiary 251 Source: flections Commission Engineering Kimberly Gilchrist 136 Katie Lengel 130 C. T>son Nettles 128 JOURNAUSM/CUS Melissa Fletcher 135 Elisc Tyndall 97 Brook Bristow 89 Criminal Justice Allison Whitworth 63 Brian D. Phillips 58 School of Law Michael Kozlarek 30 Kenny Hanson 28 School of Medicine Rob Beatty 28 James R. Shennan 23 Coi I POP OF Nursing Genesia Reed 10 Jacqueline Snoddy 7 Pharmacy Kevin E. Cogsdill 59 Public Health Doug Wilson 39 Adam Musgravc 21 Eaddy, Taylor face runoff by Brandon Larrabee Associate News Editor A runoff between presidential can didates Jotaka Eaddy and Katie Taylor has been scheduled for next week after both candidates failed to gamer a major ity of the vote in this week’s Student Government elections. Eaddy, a liberal arts junior, gar nered 1,343 votes, just more than 80 votes short of the required 50.1 percent. Taylor, a liberal aits junior, won 590 votes in the elections, which were held Wednes day and Thursday. Chemistry sophomore Mark Hart ney came in third with 519 votes, fol lowed by liberal arts junior Mike Scott with 353. Within an hour,after election results were announced, though, the SG Elec tions Commission was investigating charges that someone had sent a mass e-mail on Taylor’s behalf to students in the College of Engineering. According to the Elections Com mission, Russell Quattlebaum, whom commissioners said was Taylor’s boyfriend, sent a mass e-mail advocating Taylor’s election. “Remember to vote the 16th and 17th for KATIE TAYLOR,” the e-mail said. “The only candidate that campaigned in Engineering.” However, the e-mail disavows any connection to the Taylor campaign. “I am not a member of her staff, and am only e-mailing this to inform you of the elections,” the e-mail said. The e-mail went on to remind readers that the elec tion was online, and gave die Web address of the page where students could vote. As of Thursday, the commission was considering possible actions on several chaiges related to the incident. Taylor denied any wrongdoing con nected with her staff. “That was not anyone on my staff... and 1 did not give anyone prior authority to do that,” Taylor said. “I do not in any way endorse that. I would take it back if I could, but I can’t,” she said. She added that sending another e-mail to correct the problem would also be in violation of SG elections codes. Commissioners were considering whether Taylor had foreknowledge of the event, or whether she knew about the e mail before telling the commission. Taylor already has two elections in fractions. Since infractions aren’t erased after the first election, three more would lead to her being disqualified. Candidates who won a chance to par ticipate in the runoff said they were pleased “I’m just so emotional right now,” Eaddy said, crying. “We fought a good fight.” Eaddy said she was encouraged by the increased voter turnout. More than 2,800 students voted in the presidential race, about 600 more than in last year’s elec tion. • “I’m just glad a lot more students vot ed,” Eaddy said. “I think students looked at the issues and they voted according to the issues.” Taylor said she had mixed feelings. “I’m excited and nervous at the same time,” she said. Taylor also said she was pleased with the increased turnout. “Obviously, with the increased num ber of votes, the turnout increased, so I think that’s a great thing,” she said. Both candidates said they would cam paign harder in the next week. “Basically, I’m just going to go out and campaign harder,” Taylor said. “A lot of people didn’t know about the voting.” Runoff see page 2 Katie Taylor, left, and Jotaka Eaddy will hit the campaign trail next week for the Student Government runoff Wednesday and Thursday. Students can vote online for the runoff as they did for the regular election, from 9 a.m. Wednesday to 5 pjn. Thursday. Shah wins treasurer by Kenley Young Editor in Chief Chemical engineering sophomore Ricky Shah was elected Student Gov ernment treasurer Thursday night by a maigin of 635 votes. Shalt received 1,592 votes; his op ponent, business junior Tony Holcak, garnered 957 votes. Shah ran on a platform stressing uni versity safety and promoting campus di versity. Shall also said he wants to “cre ate a budget that caters to the needs and wants of the entire university,” in cluding a revamped e-mail system. “I’m looking forward to a new year,” Shall said. “This is kind of a shock right now.” Shah attributed his victory to hard work and personal campaigning. “I think the last two days made a dif ference because I did a lot of cam paigning,” he said. “I was on the street five to six hours a day talking to people, and I think that made a difference.” Shall said he wants to get settled in by building on what current SG Trea surer Elizabeth Fordham has accom plished. “I think she did a good job in terms of her day-to-day activities,” Shah said. “Plus, she has the experience of a year in office.” Fordham said that if Shall is to be suc cessful, he must function well with the rest of the SG. “1 don’t think that experience is nec essary for this job, although 1 don’t lliink il can hurt you,” she said. “I hope he [Shah] and I can work well together so he can perform well in office.” Some of die keys to performing well, Fordham said, include cooperation, lead ership and a healthy work ethic. “I think he [Shah] needs to be able to work well with the finance commit tee, as well as be a leader in the office and really make himself known within Student Government,” Fordham said. According to Shah, his priorities as treasurer are “to make Student Govern ment more accessible, increase student involvement and make the budgeting process as fair and efficient as possible for all constituents.” Shah said he was pleased with the way elections were handled this year. “With online voting this year, stu dents could just roll out of bed and vote if they wanted to,” he said. “And 1 think, overall, [the campaign process] was a big success.” He also said he’s open to any advice his opponent can offer. “Tony [Holcak] did a great job,” Sliah said. “We were both great candidates. I Shah see page 2 Amy Gouiding Photo Editor Ricky Shah, center, hugs opponent Tony Holcak on Thursday night after Shah was announced as the new SG treasurer. Maurice's no longer partner of USC by Patrick Rathbun Assistant News Editor USC has confirmed a recent decision to discontinue its business relationship with Maurice’s restaurants. The decision was made by Host Com munications, which handles USC sport ing events’ marketing, advertising and ra dio and television rights. Although several news agencies have reported that the decision was based on political issues, USC officials involved with the decision have said this is inac curate. USC’s Director of Public Affairs Russ McKinney said the decision was based solely on business issues. “Because [Maurice’s owner] Mr. Bessinger has been so vocal in his support of the Confederate flag, and he’s been crit ical of [USC’s] president and the univer sity for their position, we have received complaints because of associations with him,” McKinney said. “The decision by Host [Communications] was based direedy Maurice’s see page 2 Weather Inside Datebook Online Poll Results Today 62 57 Saturday , 74 45 I Gamecocks end 9-game losing streak i Page B1 Friday • Baseball, Delaware State, 3 p.m. (home) Saturday FEBRlfcUwl * R°uni* Table Gaming „ Society, noon to 11:45 1 Q Pm> RTl Is USC tunneling too much money into the Master Plan? Look for the poll results in the Feb. 28 edition of The GaiXocock. t