Vote for Pedro narrowly captures IUSA election

Newly elected IUSA President-elect Alex Shortle has hardly slept in the past four days. \nAfter three weeks of campaigning, his Vote for Pedro ticket narrowly defeated runner-up Kirkwood in the closest IUSA election in history.\n"I can't believe it," Shortle said.\nVote for Pedro supporters worked continuously this week to win the votes needed to beat the other three tickets by going door-to-door and calling every person they knew, Shortle said.\n"I don't think we were really confident we would win," he said. "We had a lot of work to do but we did it. We were incredible." \nVoter turnout was up 25 percent this year, with a record 9,496 students submitting ballots over the two-day election that ended at 10 p.m. Wednesday night.\nVote for Pedro beat Kirkwood by only 50 votes. Third-place ticket Connect finished with 1,531 votes and the College ticket pulled in 535.\nNone of the tickets filed complaints by Thursday's 5 p.m. deadline. The Student Body Supreme Court has already certified the results.\nThis is the first time no complaints have been filed, said Derek Molter, IUSA's elections coordinator.\n"(This) speaks so highly for all the tickets. They ran very classy campaigns," he said.\nAll four tickets said prior to the elections that they would not file complaints against each other, Molter said. Complaints can be filed for any number of campaign infractions, such as during last year's Big Red ticket scandal. Big Red failed to disclose all campaign expenditures, which resulted in its victory being stripped away by the Student Body Supreme Court.\n"(Vote for Pedro) ran a good, clean campaign," Kirkwood Presidential Candidate Bryan Strawbridge said. "I hope they do a great job in office and I think they will."\nDespite its executive loss, Kirkwood's congressional candidates won the majority in the IUSA Congress. The ticket hopes to use that majority to pass its campaign initiatives through meetings called "Kirkwood caucuses," Strawbridge said.\nThe Connect ticket said it hopes to use its congressional candidates as well. Vice Presidential Candidate Ami Holthouse said even though her the ticket's executives did not win, she hopes the new administration can utilize other members on the Connect ticket who did get elected.\n"There were lots of kids that were excited to be involved in student government," Holthouse said. "I'd like to see IUSA grow and get all the people involved from all the tickets."\nConnect Presidential Candidate John Palmer said he was displeased with the results.\n"(I'm) disappointed actually in the students," he said. "I was really hoping this would be an election about issues and integrity and not just who you know and novelty. From the way it's looking, that's kind of how it turned out."\nBut the grassroots approach to the election is what set Vote for Pedro apart, said Will Leckey, the ticket's vice president-elect. Throughout the campaign, the ticket's executive candidates emphasized how their roles as regular students set them apart from the student politicians. \n"I think students appreciated that and responded to it," Leckey said. "Running for a political office, you're going to see a lot of fake things. When the elections come, all these kids in college that normally just want to have fun suddenly turn all serious. There's no fun anymore."\nVote for Pedro's first priority before taking office April 1 will be one of its platform issues -- educating students about their rights before Little 500. President-elect Shortle also wants to thank those students who helped Vote for Pedro win the election, he said. The ticket only had three weeks to accomplish what some tickets -- such as Kirkwood -- had been working toward for months.\n"They had the organization," Shortle said. "That's the one thing we always lacked. We had the image, and we had the people that are passionate. They won it for us."\nThe College ticket did not return calls by press time.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Colleen Corley at ccorley@indiana.edu.