Benjy Egel
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9:14 p.m.
This word cloud shows the frequency of language used in the presidential candidates’ official statements presented to voters.
7:57 p.m.
On the day of the election, students give advice to whoever ends up as the next ASI president.
6:07 p.m.
Every day in Jake Rogers’ life is busy, but this one is especially so. By 3 p.m., he had already completed a day’s work at his full-time job, taken one midterm, prepared for another midterm – oh, and run between Dexter Lawn and the Julian A. McPhee University Union in a last-ditch effort to secure votes.
After placing third in a Mustang News poll last week, Rogers came out on the offensive in Monday’s debate, repeatedly questioning competitor Connor Paquin. Rogers’ aggressive attitude and desire to shake up ASI earned him an endorsement from the Mustang News editorial board Tuesday night.
“I think it helped a lot, just in getting my name out there for one, and some of my stances,” Rogers said. “I think the editorial … should definitely help going into today.
Rogers knows he is the dark horse in this year’s election, and said he knew who his biggest competition is. While Rogers said he was still worried about Paquin, he is more focused on Joi Sullivan.
“Joi’s run a great campaign, and I think she’s kind of the person to beat at this point, but I think it’s still really up in the air for anywhere. From what I’ve heard there are a lot of people coming by the booth that are still undecided, so we’ll see what happens,” Rogers said.
5:42 p.m.
The three candidates spent their time Wednesday trying to eek out any final advantage by talking to voters who hadn’t made up their minds yet. “I’m feeling good, I’ve been talking to a lot of students,” Joi Sullivan said. “It seems like people are voting so that’s a great thing. Obviously there’s still quite a bit of time left … so a lot can happen between now and then.”
5:23 p.m.
The most interesting part of Connor Paquin’s campaign strategy wasn’t the root beer floats or candy he handed out, or his team’s bright orange “Poly Wins With Paquin” T-shirts — it was a bunch of stickers attached to his booth by Dexter Lawn.
About 100 students who visited Paquin’s booth had placed stickers under columns labeled “sustainability,” “greek life,” “club funding,” “diversity” or “quarters vs. semesters” based on which issue they found most important.
More students picked “sustainability” than any other category, though “club funding” and “diversity” were close behind. If Paquin were elected president, he said he would think about having a similar board up throughout the year.
“As you can see, sustainability is huge. And something like quarters and semesters, if we had (done this) last year that might have been the winner, but now it’s maybe fizzling out,” Paquin said. “It’s something that, next year, might be a good idea. If I were elected I could definitely implement something like this.”
3:32 p.m.
Most of her presidential campaigning is in the rearview mirror, but Joi Sullivan isn’t quite ready to relax yet. She’ll be out at her booth in the Julian A. McPhee University Union until 2 a.m., fueled on a steady stream of coffee and ready to meet potential voters.
Sullivan led Mustang News’ poll last week with 16 percent of the vote among likely voters, though 67 percent said they were still undecided. Campaign executives Daniel Wasta, Katie Magnus and Jonathan Wardrip helped her reach out to groups around campus, from students walking to class to the men’s basketball team.
“I think we ran the best campaign that we could have run, to be honest,” she said. “By the time it gets to 7:40 tomorrow, we’ll have left everything out on this campus.”
Sullivan’s campaign team passed out free hot dogs on Dexter Lawn on Tuesday, arguably the most popular event of campaign season. She got the idea from current President Jason Colombini’s campaign last year, she said.
“It was very successful for Jason last year, (so) we figured it would be again this year and it definitely was,” Sullivan said. “We had a lot of students come out for free food, and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of students.
10:39 a.m.
After experiencing technical problems with the My Cal Poly portal, ASI has extended the voting period an extra 40 minutes to 7:40 a.m. Thursday.
In addition, an ASI Facebook post said the results would first be announced at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in the Julian A. McPhee University Union, then in the Recreation Center following Atmosphere’s concert at approximately 12:15 p.m.
This e-mail just came in from ASI spokesperson Michelle Broom, following the technical issues with student government’s voting system:
Original post
Welcome to your news hub for this year’s Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) election. We’ll be posting interviews with presidential candidates and new developments as they come in throughout the day. If you have questions or things you’d like to see covered, tweet to me at @BenjyEgel or comment in the space below.
For now, check out some reading on the candidates’ performance in Monday’s debate and see what happens if the race is too close to call.