Following a 14 hour delay in results, the members of team BGP were named the next AMS executive. They won with 59.7% of the vote on the second ballot.
41.4% of AMS members voted in this AMS election. The results were announced at 11:20 a.m.
After AMS President-elect Eril Berkok was told that his team won the election, he kissed a friend amidst a roaring crowd of supporters.
“PDA has finally arrived,” he said, jokingly.
The team waited in anticipation for the results in a small common room on the top floor of the JDUC, with only 15 or so campaign supporters in attendance, a more intimate setting than last night’s planned election party.
“Catharsis has never been so well defined for me until this morning,” Berkok said, regarding the delay.
Peter Green, AMS vice-president of operations-elect, added that the news didn’t fully register with him until he called his mother.
“I didn’t even know what was happening, and it didn’t sink in until then, and then I got a little teary.”
He added that their campaign tactics are thanks to campaign manager Chelsey Morphy.
“Did you think we made our own website and made our own schedules and developed our own strategies for ourselves?” he said. “We just wrote the platform.”
T.K. Pritchard, AMS vice-president of university affairs-elect, attributed the team’s win to a dedicated volunteer base and persistence in reaching out to students.
“We did 137 class talks, which is multiple class talks per time slot. That’s a lot of students to reach to and I feel like in the end that got us more votes because we pushed to more students,” he said.
In regards to BGP’s competitors, Berkok said Team TNL and Team PDA “gave them a serious run for their money.”
“They did a fantastic job and the extremely high voter turnout speaks very much to how strong all the teams were this year,” he said.
Team PDA was informed they didn’t win by the AMS Elections Team, though the team wasn’t together to hear the results.
PDA’s campaign manager, Alexander Rotman, received the call at 11:20 a.m. in the food court at the Queen’s Centre.
Rotman, ArtSci ’13, and vice President of university affairs candidate Lisa Acchione, ArtSci ’14, declined to comment at this time.
Presidential candidate Alexander Prescott, ArtSci ’14, and vice president of operations candidate Craig Draeger, ArtSci ’13, could not be reached for comment.
At 4:40 a.m. Thursday morning, Draeger tweeted “Well, I’m going to turn off my phone and go to sleep until late afternoon tomorrow. Will be out of contact until at least 4 or 5. Have fun!”
Last night, Prescott was asked to leave the JDUC by Campus Security after being informed of the results delay. Draeger and Acchione later joined him in the Queen’s Centre.
At team TNL’s gathering, silence washed over the room when presidential candidate Troy Sherman answered the phone call that informed them of their loss.
“We didn’t win guys,” Sherman told the team along with a few close supporters. The group, who had gathered at vice-president of university affairs candidate Liam Faught’s house, were visibly dejected.
Daniel Bone, team TNL’s campaign manager, stood up and expressed a few words of gratitude for the team.
“We didn’t win, but it really wasn’t for nothing – we learned a lot, we did have fun, we made some amazing friendships. I’m just really proud of the three of you and the rest of the team,” Bone, Comm ’14, said.
“It was pretty amazing to see all that support all week.”
The team turned to each other after receiving the news and hugs went around the room.
“It’s not easy to put it into words,” Bone said regarding their reactions to the results.
“I think we ran a very positive campaign,” Sherman, ArtSci ’14 said. “I think most importantly we brought a lot of issues to the intentions of the students.”
Sherman said he looks forward to being an average student next year, while Faught, ArtSci ’14 said with a laugh that he will perhaps “pursue [his] interests” by working for the Tea Room or Golden Words.
TNL expressed their appreciation for their volunteers and wished team BGP the best of luck for the upcoming year.
“I personally couldn’t imagine a better team to lose to — they ran an excellent campaign and they’re great people,” Bone added.
See queensjournal.ca and Friday’s issue of the Journal for more election coverage.
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.
