results party
March 24th, 2010
Voting closes in about 10 minutes; results will be announced in the Grawood tonight, and I am hoping some of our intrepid pundits keep you posted here.
Also at the Grawood tonight: Dalhousie’s Got Talent Finals. If voting in the DSU Elections isn’t enough for you, vote online for your favorite after the show.
Does anyone know when they’re announcing the results?
I have been told that they will be announcing results starting at 9:00, but co-inciding with Dalhousie’s Got Talent. There will be an act, then a position will be announced, an act, a position will be announced, etc. People more in the know than I are free to correct me.
Also, the netbook and I will be in the corner, liveblogging the results. Yay!
Jen I can not wait to here you comments as I will not be able to make the show this evening.
Last I heard Vegas has Greg at a 1,000,000 to 1 for President, funny they have him at 100 to 1 for VPI?? 2 to 1 odds he will make a scene to night either way.
I just hope the bartenders get him a beer quickly so he does not have to pace around like at the debate.
@ Jen Bond
You are correct about the alternating format.
Thanks for live blogging. I would like to be there, but my academics can’t afford that much time off tonight…shucks.
From what I’ve heard.. but then again it may be terribly wrong?
9pm, 930pm, 10pm, 1030pm and 11pm are the result times…
They will be annoucing Senate at 9:00, VPSL at 9:30, VP Ed at 10:00, VP I at 10:30 and President at 11:00. In between they will have acts from Dals Got Talent which will be about 20 mins each!
@Nancy
So, assuming that things fall behind schedule (in the manner that everything does, ever), we’ll be lucky to hear President by 11:30? Wonderful. This is cruel and unusual.
And I don’t mean to me (though I will certainly suffer internally). I mean to the candidates who have been putting their lives on hold waiting for this. It’s easy to say “what’s a few more hours?” if you’re not in their shoes; I have been, and it’s awful, and that was earlier in the year than these guys. This will literally turn the world on its head for the candidates, win or lose.
Price has a business to think of. Bailey has to look at whether he’s on track to finish grad school or not. Some candidates don’t have fallback plans at all. And Saulnier, for the love of God, Saulnier gave up co-op to do this, and will need to completely reconfigure his plans.
The candidates have my sympathy. And on this one, the CRO has my ire.
@Eric Snow
I’m assuming that because the CRO hasn’t had a life for the past three weeks, she’s forgotten that other people actually have to function outside of the election bubble.
To top it all off: Because the results party has been moved to [edit: Wednesday], we’re missing a new episode of America’s Next Top Model. The CRO’s cruelty knows no bounds.
@Eric Snow
I’m sorry Eric, but having run two serious elections, and the referendum last year which I am not counting, I have to say, one day would not matter. The candidates get involved because they perceive they can make a difference, whether such a sentiment is misguided or not. Previous execs can testify yeah or nay, with members I know in either direction. Their lives are on hold by choice. They put the DSU before their greater aims.
This election has been frought with many problems, and the CRO, from what I’ve heard, has received very little support. I understand even punditry.ca posted percentage votes early, without CRO approval, and I know some candidates were aware of the results before they were even announced. The DSU seems to possess flaws, which evidently cannot even be fixed from within given the shambles of last night’s AGM. The CRO in this case has my sympathy, and the support structure of the DSU for the democratic process in this instance, my ire.
Just to clarify, no results were posted to punditry.ca before being announced, and if candidates were aware of results before they announced it wasn’t through punditry.ca.
@Lisa Buchanan
And sorry, Lisa, but we currently function outside the bubble. Our opinions ought not to matter. The CRO has been placed in an unfamiliar bubble, and she has to function within the confines it dictates. We have no control, and our only interest is curiosity at this point.
@Mike Smit
I am operating purely on speculation here, but I understand from hearsay that the percentage breakdowns were not to be posted until tomorrow by the CRO, but appeared as soon as the results were announced. Was this based on officially released results? I know I was disappointed not to see the percentages in the Grawood, although I know the percentage votes were only announced as the official winners were announced at the results party.
I agree with Dan. The CRO was elected this term, received little to no help from the outgoing CRO and let’s be honest – the position itself is underpaid for the amount of work that goes into it. Also, with so many pundits and “insiders” around her and her committee, nearly 24/7…its a lot of pressure and a different experience then previous CRO’s. To match last years turnout with such a time constraint and bad weather to boot, I commend her effort. Also, I think the plan to turn the results into a “show” was actually kind of nice. The overjoyed candidates celebrating and the handshakes all around is a lot nicer then having the losing candidate disappear into the abyss.
Bravo to the CRO and all the election committee volunteers.
I’ll contact the CRO on this matter; I was not aware that percentages were not being announced at the Grawood, I just assumed Jen wasn’t capturing them and was trying to help. I know percentages have been announced at the Grawood every year for the last decade, but I should not have made that assumption. Judging by the time stamp on dsuelections.ca, we had the first percentages up about an hour before the official site. This should not have happened.
Allow me to re-phrase my comment: no winners were announced on punditry.ca prior to the announcement by the CRO.
@Daniel Boyle
I’m not defending the process, or the issues that arose. In fact, I’ve had her back to the extent that I could on a few issues, and offered my advice on others. I think it needs a complete overhaul, not to mention support from the Exec (which apparently wasn’t there) and actual reports from previous CROs (which apparently weren’t either). On this one issue, though, I was frustrated.
I also completely disagree with you. I was counting the agonizing minutes when I was waiting on results, and any more of a delay would have been all the more crushing. Maybe it was different for my personal situation (as I would imagine it was for others this year), or maybe it was because I ran for President. Maybe it’s because you won and I lost, and it’s easier to look back on it when you didn’t have to make the tough “Well, what now?” decisions.
In any case, the candidates who put in the effort to win go through hell to do it. Letting them know if they get a damn thing for doing it in a reasonable amount of time is, in my opinion, a small price to pay.
@Megan
I agree completely that the CRO position is under-appreciated and overworked. As always the elections committee and the CRO deserve our respect, appreciation, and full support. Wrangling candidates and voters is a headache no one should have to bear, but every year someone steps up to do it. Kudos to CRO Dubois and her team on running a successful DSU election.
Interesting to hear it was different from other years. Any idea in which way?
@Mike Smit
Ditto, on the kudos to the CRO. I don’t want my frustration with one issue to negate my respect for what she’s been able to accomplish on everything else.
Why were reports not there? I know it has been 5 years since I was CRO, but I looked constantly to the report written during the 2004 election (written by CRO Will Szubielski) and because I knew how important that document was for future CROs I made sure my own (which was more than 100 pages long) was as detailed and inclusive as possible. It contained EVERYTHING that was remotely related to the 2005 election, recommendations for the future, etc. I know Stefanie Butt, CRO in 2006, used it because I saw her with it on multiple occasions (and she once asked me to autograph it). I also remember her writing her own, so I know they exist at least through that year.
Also, writing the report used to be part of recieving the honorarium… Has this suddenly changed? If it has that is a huge shame. If the reports just were not made available that is an even bigger shame. I agree with Debogorski that many things should be changed in the DSU, but something as standardized as running the elections wouldn’t be first on my overhaul list. Institutional memory is very important and that is why we write these documents in the first place, but I think even more importantly we write them so that the person who comes after us knows what to expect and that they have someone out there that understands.
Being the CRO sucks. It is a daunting and totally unappreciated position that still gives me nightmares to recount. My DRO and I sat down at one point after the elections and calculated that I made less than two dollars an hour for the time I put in and I failed a class that semester. However it is also one of the coolest positions you can have in the DSU. I may mock them (I certainly did while I was CRO) but being surrounded by candidates who are so eager to see change and make a difference is insanely inspiring. Working with volunteers to get out the vote and interacting with student demographics to increase voter turn out and solicit feedback is enlightening to say the least. And I don’t only think these things in retrospect… after I woke up from the bender I went on after my final judicial board submission was entered in 2005 I instantly realised that I would never have a position like that at Dalhousie ever again and I was truly lucky to have served.
I don’t think that anyone here means to belittle Anne Marie or the job she did under difficult circumstances this year. I know how hard it is. You don’t get support from the exec (and believe me you don’t really want it, despite the posts here to the contrary, because the second it seems they might even remotely be getting involved in the election shit really hits the fan, I should know), you don’t get support from a lot of people. It is a lonely position. You have to be able to put all the bullshit aside and smile and be nice to the different election stakeholders pulling you in 20 different directions when really all you want is to tell them all to fuck off and go to your German Philosophy class and think about how right Heidegger was about everything… or drink, which I definitely did a lot of. Everyone handles the stress differently. I have been constantly impressed with the CROs who have come after me, their innovation and seeming ability to keep it all together, but I know that sometimes it is a total facade. Been there. Done that.
Why don’t people vote? Why was turn out lower than some recent years? Why do old timers seem to be less impressed this year whereas we’ve seen some awesome response from new members to the DSU, Punditry, etc.? I have no idea. You know who else has no idea? Anne Marie. Could she have done things better? Maybe. Could we all have done more? Probably. For now though I hope she has a beer, takes a really long nap, goes and gets a massage or something and doesn’t think about the gauntlet she just ran for a day or two. She did her job.
@Eric Snow
Well, I only won the VPI race; failed the BoG pretty miserably, with the result being a lack of my presence on council in 2007-08 year. Some stakes were involved. But you can’t lose what you don’t yet have, so there is no point in worrying about the results until they are announced by the CRO.