JBP to succeed LWT as AMS Executive

Team JBP wins with 52.61 per cent of the vote 

Team JBP celebrate their victory. Jenn Li was voted in as AMS President-elect

Just after 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday night, a boisterous crowd of blue-clad supporters were interrupted by the sudden arrival of the current AMS Executive: the signal that Team JBP had won.

Leading the way through the chanting crowd, Vice President (Operations) Dave Walker was the first to embrace President-elect Jenn Li, Vice President (University Affairs)-elect Palmer Lockridge and Vice President (Operations)-elect Brian MacKay.

Li led the way to the front porch of the house where herself, Lockridge and MacKay delivered their acceptance speech, cigars in hand and shivering in the snow. Lockridge implored the crowd of AMS representatives, club leaders, and supporters of their slogan, “let’s do this together!”

Through tears, Li thanked campaign manager Andrew DiCapua as well as her teammates. MacKay beamed throughout the announcement, receiving embraces from all directions.

Hardly a block away, MTW campaign manager Emily Vassos got the phone call that her team — Presidential candidate Aniqah Mair, Vice President (University Affairs) candidate Julie Tran, and Vice President (Operations) candidate Landon Wilcock — had lost.

The final tally came in at 52.61 per cent for Team JBP, with a total of 3,492 votes, and 43.68 per cent for Team MTW, with a total of 2,899 votes. 3.71 per cent of votes were cast for none of the above.

Following the news, Team MTW congregated privately for a moment of reflection. When they were ready, they made a public statement to the crowd at their election party.

“Thank you to everyone who supported us, thank you to everyone who has been there for us since day one,” Tran said. “There was no way we’d be here without your support. Unfortunately we didn’t prepare for a speech like this.”

“I guess you have to take the positives out of a really unfortunate situation,” Wilcock added. “We all really stood up to the typical group that has come year to year to AMS and we really stood up and said these people need to be heard.”

“We love you so much,” Mair told their supporters. In response, the crowd began to chant, “we love you MTW”.

Victoria Chappell, the sole candidate for Undergraduate Student Trustee, was voted in with 93.7 per cent confidence of 5,370 votes cast. She didn’t hold a celebration of her own, and elected to go to JBP’s instead.

The night also yielded results for the various faculty societies. In the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS), results were followed with contention between teams.

The successful team of Jasmine Lagundzija and Stefan Negus celebrated by passing around champagne bottles to their supporters. “We had other teams in this race and they fought so hard. Abby and Nick and Emma and Sam, we thank you for fighting a hard race,” Lagundzija said.

However, upon receiving the negative results via phone call, Presidential candidate Abby Chaudhry of Team Abby and Nick said that he was just glad it was over.

“It was an interesting experience to say the least,” he said, thanking Nick for sticking it out until the end.

Sam Roe of Team Sam and Emma called the Jasmine and Stefan campaign “one of the most disgusting campaigns I’ve ever seen.”

“[They] ran an abusive and vicious campaign,” he wrote in a statement to The Journal. “We’re disgusted that their complete lack of integrity and flagrant violation of both election policy and basic decency went unpunished by the elections team.”

Emma Redfearn later added in that the campaign “really opened our eyes to how inaccessible it is for some students to run for student government.”

The Engineering Society logged its highest-documented voter turnout, at 66.5 per cent of the faculty after a concerted social media push to combat voter apathy.

Max Berkowitz was acclaimed as Engineering Society Senator and Nat Wong was voted in as President, Julianna Jeans as Vice President (Student Affairs) and Jillian Reid as Vice President (Operations).

The Engineering Society satire publication, Golden Words, had its $2.00 mandatory fee renewed — after having its fee increase rejected last year — along with all other fee increases, introductions or continuations on the referendum ballot.

The Residence Society Executive team race went to Team CPR, with Presidential candidate Jake Roseman, Vice President (Residence Affairs) Andrea Colisanti and Vice President (Judicial Affairs) Maddie Perrault.

Alex Wojaczek was voted in as the Computing Students’ Association President, with Vice President (University Affairs) Ashley Drouillard and Vice President (Operations) Lauren Yates.

– With files from Mikayla Wronko, Julia Balakrishnan, Shivani Gonzales, Jasnit Pabla, Brigid Goulem, Clayton Tomlinson, Iain Sherriff-Scott, Jenna Zucker and Jane Willsie

Tags

#AMSvotes, AMS elections, AMS executive, Asus, Brian Mackay, COMPSA, Engineering Society, EngSoc, Golden Words, Jenn Li, Palmer Lockridge, Residence Soceity, ResSoc, Team JBP, Team MTW, Undergraduate Student Trustee, Victoria Chappell

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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content