10 Comments so far

1. Anonymous on February 16, 2008 3:53 am

   congrats to the sum of the joke candidates on winning this election!

2. Anonymous on February 16, 2008 4:05 am

   what do you mean by that, anon?
   Kushnir was running a serious candidacy.

3. Anonymous on February 16, 2008 4:40 am

   re: “pretty good turnout”

   Well, perhaps it was pretty good considering the fact that nobody knew there was an election going on.

   At the same time, by my count 1605 votes were cast. If the Ubyssey’s article about the regular election is to be believed, there were 45,040 voters. Meaning that turnout was at ~3.5%. Because the AMS uses a simple electoral system (not IRV, STV, or something else), the winner emerged victorious with a plurality representing less than 1% of eligible voters.

   While I did not vote for the winner, I applaud him for being the only person who worked to inform students of the existence of the election, by actually campaigning.

4. maayan kreitzman on February 16, 2008 7:30 pm

   Anon 8:40 – I agree that this voting system means the “winner” almost never gets a majority of those who voted. Vote-splitting and strategic voting is a reality with First past the post systems. that’s why AMS council just passed a preferential voting system (called Condorcet) at this week’s council meeting. The code changes will soon be going through. Next year, student will have a MUCH better voting system through which they can express their true preferences by ranking candidates. So, you could vote for a joke candidate first, but still distinguish between two frontrunners and have your preference between them counted as a vote in favor of one or the other.

5. Anonymous on February 16, 2008 8:19 pm

   Why is everybody putting a negative label on the Knoll group? They are doing good job on campus and by far, they are the most dedicated people to improve students’ lives, even better than some of the people who was elected into the Exec this year. “knolligarchy”? That is kinda an insult to them as they are the very people who are trying to eliminate the oligarchy of the AMS.

6. Anonymous on February 16, 2008 9:28 pm

   They are trying to eliminate it by instituting their own.

   In their most recent article, they specifically state that they hate ‘the media’ for being biased. And yet, specifically exempt the form of media that THEY peddle because somehow they are more right.

   They argue against preferential voting on the basis that it will be harder for ‘radical’ candidates to be elected.

   They are a hypocritical group whose main goals are in no way shape or form intended to improve ‘democracy’. All they do is attempt to serve their own ambitions and agendas at the expense of the people.

7. Jesse Ferreras on February 17, 2008 5:14 am

   Anonymous 1:28 was not me, I swear.

8. Anonymous on February 20, 2008 4:26 am

   Jesse, the Ubyssey and your blog is not much better than the Knoll. Your blog is some of the worst journalism I have ever seen.

   -Albert

9. ainge on February 27, 2008 4:55 pm

   people call it a knolligarchy because they have noticed it’s the same people involved in this, trek park, sds, etc. it is a cute name, and if you knew maayan at all, youd know she is very nice and not out to needlessly insult folks. that’s my job.

   i dont get stephanie ryans candidacy or the 100 votes she received. i thought she was telling people not to vote for her. between this and the lougheedgate (not equating the two), these student government kids have a weird way of raising election awareness. i thought joke candidacies were supposed to be funny, and i thought protests were supposed to be public.

   the knolligarchy had a good candidate and i congratulate these young octoberists on their victory against global capitalism. hasta la victoria por siempre, kids.

10. Alfie on February 29, 2008 8:11 am

    Ainge spoke what i wanna say.