Candidate stuff

I'm still waiting on the vote files to play around with, particularly to see what the implications of Nadir Shams's disqualification might be. I don't expect it to happen, but if it does, it will almost certainly mean Shawn Jain gets in, and may knock Chad Kunert right out of the Senate. The other beneficiary may be Jessica Parra-Fitch, rather than the next-in-line Amanda Pouchot or Loretta Kwong, since I imagine the enormous number of votes Shams got will go mostly to CalSERVE folks. (the next person in line would be Dimitri Garcia) But there were a lot of votes (he almost made quota on the first round), so it's tough to predict the implications.

By the way, quota was 446 this year, up from 419 last year, despite the decrease in total voters. This means there were more Senate voters. I'm not too surprised by that, since there was no University-led effort to get people to vote on a referendum this year, beside the pathetic ASUC-run Lower Sproul push. What a bunch of losers.

Senate votes were counted first, so when we saw 10 Student Action senators, we were almost sure we were going to see an SA sweep for executives. For whatever reason, though SA kicked CalSERVE's ass in the Senate, they lost for many of the executive races, which was unexpected.

Split government, by the way, is awesome. I'd be a bit happier if SA didn't have a near-majority in the Senate (I expect Dave Rhoads to get poached by SA, though it would be nice if he didn't), but maybe Van Nguyen will have to break out that veto pen. The veto pen actually sucks pretty badly. It needs a 2/3 vote in the Senate to be overridden, but most meaningful Senate actions require a 2/3 vote anyway.

Speaking of Van, he said during the campaign that he would seek to reduce executive office budgets. Will he go in front of the Senate, currently in the middle of budgeting, and say "give my office less money"? Student Action still controls the Senate, so they should be able to cut those budgets a lot for their CalSERVE successors.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 4/19/2007 09:01:00 PM #
Comments (24)

. . .

Comments:

"But there were a lot of votes (he almost made quota on the first round), so it's tough to predict the implications."

Irrelevant. The votes he got after quota were already redistributed. 446 votes exactly will be redistributed if he gets DQed.

# posted by  Anonymous : 9:51 PM, April 19, 2007

 

Um. Yeah. That's a lot of votes. It's also at the very beginning of the vote, so those votes will be distributed earlier and can change the dynamics of the Senate race quite a bit.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 9:57 PM, April 19, 2007

 

here's a test:

do 2006 results and redistribute ali ansary in the first round. youll see that nothing big changes. #21 moves up to #20, but the votes are distributed all over. so i say jain would win and that's it.

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:05 PM, April 19, 2007

 

I just did that. Sammy Averbach loses. Charles Shin and Sayshu Medicherla win.

So yes, things do change.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 10:09 PM, April 19, 2007

 

haha, yeah woops.

Sayshu winning is predictable.

that makes it even more likely that Jain will win as a result of it.

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:10 PM, April 19, 2007

 

Yeah, I'm sure Jain will win. But I think another candidate can be kicked up above Chad Kunert.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 10:14 PM, April 19, 2007

 

damn-tget the voter file

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:44 PM, April 19, 2007

 

Karan Aneja and Karl Siganporia (both Independent, South Asian candidates) would also likely get a ton of Nadir's redistributed votes, along with Shawn Jain. My guess is actually that the vast majority of Nadir's votes end up going nowhere when redistrubted (as in people voted him #1 and didn't rank anyone else).

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:55 PM, April 19, 2007

 

Would it be "legal" to release the voter file before the recount?

# posted by  jimf : 11:55 PM, April 19, 2007

 

The vote count has already been released in a public meeting, so I don't see any problem.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 12:11 AM, April 20, 2007

 

as long as they were very very careful to make sure the original file could not be tampered with--in other words lock the original file on a computer with no internet access

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:18 AM, April 20, 2007

 

"For whatever reason, though SA kicked CalSERVE's ass in the Senate, they lost for many of the executive races, which was unexpected."

SA did get a lot more Senate seats than CS, but 6 CalSERVE Senate seats is still a pretty good result for a party that some people (not me) were writing off as in permanent decline as recently as last year! It is probably in the top half of Senate results for CS in the post-209 era.

Anyway, I think the explanation for why CS did better in the executive races than in the Senate is that Senate votes are more based on which candidates you know, and on narrower consituencies that the voter might consider himself a part of (such as engineers, ethnic groups, Greeks) -- while exec votes are more based on a feeling of what is good for the whole campus, and on party-wide platforms, since most voters are unlikely to know all the exec candidates. Also, Dwight Asunction being a Republican probably did hurt him, and the CS execs really impressed people at the AAA debate apparently (so I've read anyway -- I wasn't there). There is also the Daily Cal endorsement.

Another part of the explanation is, I think, that the Squelch and independent voters for Senate heavily voted CalSERVE over Student Action this year, out of revulsion at the legal fees controversy and other examples of corruption, which is not usually the case.

# posted by  jimf : 12:41 AM, April 20, 2007

 

why do you expect Dave to get poached by SA? specifically because he's an independent, or is there another factor? (just out of curiosity)

# posted by  Sarah : 12:48 AM, April 20, 2007

 

cant Mastrodonato, Feng and KUO be DQed in addition to Shams? It would seem so because of the ECC v. SA slate case, which says the entire SA slate, not just the execs--that is if apple engineering is considered part of the SA slate.

# posted by  Anonymous : 12:50 AM, April 20, 2007

 

Kuo is the only one of those three who is in the top 20, right? How close are the other two?

Also Gabriela Urena (in the top 20) and Jessica Parra-Fitch (currently not in the top 20, but close according to Beetle) could still be disqualified as well, right?

And, oh yeah, I forgot to give credit to the Patriot and to Republicans for swinging unexpected votes to the CalSERVE execs, while not affecting senate votes so much because of the aforementioned reasons and because of the BCR candidate running. Not just Republican votes were affected, but also rhetorically, "See, even Republicans are voting CalSERVE, shows you how bad these SA execs are"! :)

Sarah, use your influence with Dave Rhoads not to let him go over to the dark side, lol ... I am getting worried by his writing on the Facebook wall of a newly elected SA senator about looking forward to working with her, and another new SA senator writing on his wall. I stalked Ali Ansary's wall comments last year because of wondering about "poaching" too, lol.

# posted by  jimf : 1:02 AM, April 20, 2007

 

urena and parra-fitch ended up only being charged with one censure each.

kuo was #2 or #3 so that's big

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:06 AM, April 20, 2007

 

Dave's last name is spelled Rhoads.

# posted by  Jeff : 1:26 AM, April 20, 2007

 

just want to make a comment:

Rhoads won because he was an independent. The people who voted because of TGIF (like a lot of the co-op people) and others who voted with anti-SA spirit voted for him because he in an independent.

That's also why Shams got even more votes than he was going to get.

I wouldn't be surprised if Shams' DQ leads to an increase for Rhoads as well as the other indies.

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:30 AM, April 20, 2007

 

Fear not everyone! I am working to keep the peace with everyone, I am excited to be on senate and work with my 19 colleagues. I ran independent for a reason and I owe no allegiance to anyone but the students.
-Dave
Also, thanks for getting the spelling right on my name. It seems the Daily Cal got it right too.

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:35 AM, April 20, 2007

 

Sorry, dude, for misspelling it the first time! Congrats again!

# posted by  Unknown : 2:40 AM, April 20, 2007

 

when was the last time an independent actually won the senatorial race?

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:37 PM, April 20, 2007

 

Last year?

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 3:51 PM, April 20, 2007

 

my bad...as in the highest vote getter in the senatorial race.

# posted by  Anonymous : 4:09 PM, April 20, 2007

 

it is another sign: the casual voters who came in and voted for TGIF voted for independents.

# posted by  Anonymous : 4:35 PM, April 20, 2007

 

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