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SG ELECTION RESULTS ANNOUNCED PHOTO BY CANDI HAUGLUM Candidates and observers listen In anticipation as Elections Commissioner Adam Bourne announces the results of the SG elections on Thursday night. To be continued... VOTER TURNOUT HIGH AS BORNEMANN, PATEL EMERGE AS TOP CHOICES PHOTO BY CANDI HAUGLUM Anklt Patel receives congratulations after advancing to the runoff. BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE GAMECOCK The campaign for the Student Government presidency moved into a new stage Thursday as Moore School of Business Sen. David Bornemann and SG Parliamentarian Ankit Patel ad vanced to a runoff. Both candidates came in well ahead of College of Journalism and Mass Communications Sen. Brook Bristow, Kaleta Brown and Jim McFadden. Bornemann took 36.4 percent of the vote, or 1,050 of2,883 bal lots cast in the presidential race. Patel came in second with 25.7 percent, or 741 votes. Bristow and Brown tied with 17.2 per cent of the vote and McFadden came in fifth with 3.5 percent. The voting turnout was among the highest in the past decade and far exceeded the to tal last year, when about 1,700 students cast ballots. The runoff will take place next Wednesday and Thursday at http://vip.sc.edu. Nearly 38 percent of the votes cast didn’t go to either of the two runoff candidates: the race next week will likely be an effort to pick up those votes. Both Bornemann and Patel voiced confidence about the runoff. “I think we have a great chance to pull this off next week,” Bornemann said after the results were announced. He said his campaign would stick with the strategy that has worked so far. “We’re gonna have everybody out there, like we’ve had all week,” Bornemann said. “It’s gonna be full force, trying to get just as many people to vote this coming week as they did this week.” Patel also said he felt good about next week’s voting. “We’ve talked with a lot of the other organizations, a lot of the other candidates and, you know, there are a lot of the people who’ve shown support from the ♦ PRESIDENT, SEE PAGE 3 PHOTO BY CANDI HAUGLUM David Bornemann received the most votes of all the presidential candidates. No runoff needed; Dreiling new VP xi noin rcLLntn THE GAMECOCK Elections Commissioner Adam Bourne stood on a table in the packed third floor lobby just after 6:30 p.m. Thursday to announce the night’s only executive office winner of this year’s Student Government Elections — Katie Dreiling. Dreiling won the vice presiden tial election with 1,747 votes, which gave her 66 percent of the total votes. Her opponent, Shereef El Ibiary, received 893 votes — 34 per cent of the total. Nathan White re ceived four write-in votes. The vice presidential race was the only ex ecutive contest that will not be de cided in a runoff because Dreiling received a majority of the votes. Moments after Bourne made the announcement, dozens of peo ple cheered and swarmed around Dreiling to congratulate the vice president-elect. “It hasn’t hit me yet,” Dreiling Katie Drolling 66% said just after finding out the elec tion results. “Usually I’m really nervous about this stuff, but tonight I think my campaign staff was even more nervous than I was.” Dreiling is a second-year political science student from Irmo. She is currently the Cabinet Safety Director, and she served on Freshman Council last year. El-Ibiary said he felt okay after he heard Bourne’s announcement. “I think I did a good job. I just wish students cared more about their university,” he said. “I saw ♦VP, SEE PAGE 3 Close race for SG treasurer will be decided next week BY ADAM BEAM THE (iAMECOCK After a campaign marked by heated debate and coarse com ments, no clear victor emerged in the race for Student Government treasurer last night. Becky Floyd and Terrance Beeks will compete in a runoff election next week. A crowd of senators and campaign staff surrounded Elections Commissioner Adam Bourne as he stood on a table to read the results. In one of the closest races in recent memo ry, Floyd garnered 1,187 votes, or 47 percent, while Beeks claimed 1,052 votes, or 42 per cent. Brant Tosi, the third can didate in the race, received 281 votes, or 11 percent. The results were no sur prise to Floyd, whosaid she only showed up to hear the re sults of the other executive candidates. Beeks “put up a really strong race, and usually with three candidates there is a split vote,” she said. Beeks, a third-year political science student, said he was “both surprised and sort of ex pecting” the runoff. “I was surprised that I was so close to Becky Floyd in the num bers,” he said. “But I was also ex pecting a runoff for treasurer.” Separated by only 135 votes, Floyd said she doesn’t expect her slight edge to help her much. Beeks sees the close race as a “kick in the butt.” “I’m going to work harder and be more visible, and my staff and I are going to do our best to get our names and plat form out there for the voters to show the members of the stu dent body that I am the best man for the job,” Beeks said. With one week until the runoff, Floyd said she doesn’t see much else to adjust in her cam paign. She just wants to “continue to be positive and upbeat and show Carolina that I care.” Runoff elections are no novel ty to USC but are a rarity for the treasurer office, with last year’s treasurer, Hydrick Harden, run ning unopposed. The most recent runoff elec tion was last year’s vice presi dential race between Nithya Bala and Nathan White. Two ♦ TREASURER, SEE PAGE 2 TODAY’S WEATHER: Partly cloudy. High 65, Low 36. TOMORROW’S WEATHER: Partly sunny. High 58, Low 34. ___ .v, - > " * > Capstone fire sparks campus concerns Residents face uncertainty about where to do laundry BY ADAM BEAM THE GAMECOCK ’ 4 • Students living on the fourth floor of Moore residence hall re turned to their rooms last Friday to find an article from The Gamecock taped to their doors. The third para graph of the article highlighted a res ident adviser’s nightmare —dryer fire caused by excessive lint. The article referred to the 4 a.m. fire at Capstone residence hall last Wednesday. The fire was caused by a buildup of lint in the exhaust system. Housing Director Gene Luna said the responsibility for clean ing out the lint falls to the laundry vendor, Web laundry services. “We’re going to make sure that they do a clean sweep of that across campus to make sure that they are Srfmata6 "Wfe’re going . tenancework to make sure that they are that they (Web laundry “This causes services) do ustoaskthem 3 clean todothedou- _wppn *hat ble check to SWeeP 0T 1031 make sure acrOSS they are tak campUS to ing care of it make sure all across campus.” that they are to add doing the 7~.Wndof alarm went maintenance off again work that Sunday night, thpv arp causing the ine” 3re evacuation of supposed to Capstone for do” the second time in five GENE LUNA , HOUSING DIRECTOR days. Sometimes even hair spray or steam from the shower can set them off,” he said. “And when it goes off, we are required by law to evacuate the whole building.” Engineers are investigating the laundry room damage. The room could be out of commission for up to 60 days, which means Capstone residents will find them selves inconvenienced by having to travel to do laundry. Columbia Hall, adjacent to Capstone, now has to accommo date the laundry of both building’s residents. “It’s just a pain, because now there are twice as many people try ing to use the machines,” Capstone resident Tiffany Wilhoit said. “And if we do laundry over there we have to stay with our stuff, so that we don’t hold things up.” Housing officials and Web plan to discuss options to make it easi er for students to use Columbia Hall’s laundry room. One option is setting aside one day for Capstone residents only. Also, students have the option to use the Laundrimate phone ser vice to see if any machines are available before they make the trip. The number for Columbia Hall is 777-6030. over a month away, Luna doesn’t expect the problems to affect Capstone’s popularity. “It will be fixed considerably sooner than next year,” he said. “Capstone will be renovated this summer, and it will be one of the nicest residence halls on campus. By getting all new furniture and finishings in the room, I think Capstone will continue to be one of our more popular residence halls.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com