Vaden, White win IUSA seats

After deciding to withdraw from the IU Student Association elections, IU freshmen basketball players Robert Vaden and D.J. White won a seat in Congress anyway.\nVaden and White said they plan to resign from their positions with the Kirkwood ticket.\nThe pair wanted to withdraw last week but missed the Feb. 15 deadline. As specified in the IUSA election code, a candidate must withdraw seven days before the election. \nNeither could be reached for comment after their victory, but Vaden said last week that he and White talked with IU coach Mike Davis and decided the additional responsibilities of student government on top of basketball and school would be too much.\nWhite garnered 1,041 votes with Vaden receiving 1,026 -- good for the third and fourth most votes respectively. IU freshman Maggie Daniels, who talked Vaden and eventually White into running, also won a University Division seat under the Kirkwood Ticket. Daniels defeating both basketball starters, finishing second with 1,116 votes.\n"It's unfortunate that they couldn't serve because they both would have been phenomenal," she said. "Robert is very witty and a very bright person."\nShe was surprised to hear that she beat both basketball stars in the vote, but said she thought that if they would've had the time to campaign, they would have been the top winners.\nFreshman Molly Giles, also of Kirkwood, trumped all three high-profile names to win first within the University Division with 1,132 votes. Six candidates total are elected for the division.\nFreshmen Adam Passarelli of Vote for Pedro and Kristin King of Kirkwood filled out the final spots with 1,005 and 990 votes respectively.\nFreshmen Chris Mills of Kirkwood and Dan Karlander of Vote for Pedro weren't elected, but were the next two in the results with 967 and 840 votes. If Vaden and White had been able to resign in time, those two candidates would have been elected.\nKarlander said he isn't too disappointed about losing and said he hopes he can be involved in IUSA in some way this semester.\n"Kirkwood was definitely trying to use their names to get more people in office, but it's not a big deal," he said. "I'm sure there is a way that I could apply for their (vacated) spots."\nSince Vaden and White said they will decline their positions, the winning executive ticket, Vote for Pedro, will have the responsibility of collecting applications to fill the positions. They will then give the applications to the IUSA congressional membership committee, who submits favorable candidates to a full-body congressional vote.\nIUSA vice president-elect Will Leckey of the Vote for Pedro ticket said the executives would follow through with the constitution and replace them upon receiving their resignations. \n"We're looking for students that will actively represent the student body," Leckey said. "People that aren't going to be fake -- just voice their opinion and be honest."\nPresident elect Alex Shortle, also from the Vote for \nPedro ticket, said he would consider a variety of people from the campaigns for the vacated congressional seats. Shortle said the replacements wouldn't necessarily be from the Vote for Pedro and that the candidates who lost behind White and Vaden might be considered.\n"It's a shame that these guys used their names as a token to get elected," Shortle said. "I know Dan Karlander and he would surely be considered."\nKarlander may run into the same problem that plagued Vaden and White. Karlander is one of the leading scorers for IU's club hockey team, which has a No. 1 seed heading into their national tournament next week. Karlander said he doesn't see it as too much of a conflict.\n"It takes a lot of time, but it's not a Division-I sport," he said. "I think I could make it work."\nDavis said in a previous statement that IUSA would add a little too much responsibility for the freshmen basketball players.\n"With those two being only freshmen in college but student-athletes means they already have a great deal of responsibility," Davis said, "And adding something like the IUSA could be a little overwhelming."\nNew executive officers aren't sworn in until April.\nIU football players Kyle Killion and William Lumpkin also ran and both lost. Killion, running for an off-campus congressional seat in the Vote for Pedro ticket, lost after receiving 793 votes. Lumpkin ran for vice president of the student body on the College ticket. College received just 535 votes -- nearly 1,000 votes behind third place finisher, Connect.\n-- Contact Sports Editor Adam Aasen at aaasen@indiana.edu and Staff Writer John Rodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu.