DiZoglio, Migliacci Big Winners in SGA Elections

Strong vote totals among sophomores and juniors carried Nick DiZoglio to a successful bid for re-election as SGA Vice President in the most contested race of this week’s SGA Elections.

In the election’s other race, freshman Brad Migliacci won 251-145 over junior transfer Bianca Kreiling for SGA Secretary. Both Mitch Vieira and Ed Plamowski ran unopposed and will officially assume the seats of SGA President and Treasurer, respectively, next year.

Voter turnout shrank significantly from last year, going from roughly 1,200 to 500 votes this year, said current SGA President Brian LeFort.

Despite the turnout numbers, Treasurer-Elect Plamowski called the elections “a great success”.

“I think students voted for a quality leadership team that will be capable of doing great things for Suffolk next year,” he said. “We’re a group with a lot of experience around campus and in the SGA. I think we’ll all be able to bring together unique ideas on how to make the SGA a more efficient organization.

“More importantly we’ve seen an excellent group of Senators elected for next year,” he added. “The Senate being the student’s representative body it’s great to see so many bright people elected to serve.”

DiZoglio beat out challengers Martha Alvarado (Class of 2013) and Jeff Cyr (2011) for the VP spot, picking up 201 total votes versus Cyr’s 131 and Alvarado’s 119. DiZoglio lost only one class: the freshmen, who mostly supported Alvarado (57 freshmen votes versus DiZoglio’s 48 and Cyr’s 18).

Among seniors, the incumbent Vice President won by a slim margin: 37 votes against Cyr’s 30 and Alvarado’s 15. His largest margin of victory came in the sophomore class: 57 votes against 36 for Cyr and 33 for Alvarado. He also found support amongst juniors, picking up 59 votes against Cyr’s 47 and Alvarado’s 14.

Cyr, who led a campaign that was critical of DiZoglio and the current SGA administration, said that he and Alvarado may have split votes in the final count which he says likely hurt his final tally.

“If Martha weren’t running, I think I would have won,” said Cyr. “I think that’s pretty fair to say.”

"I don't think Jeff and I split votes more than me and Nick," said Alvarado, "I think we all had our own group of supporters and can't really speculate as to if my supporters would've voted for Jeff or Nick had I not run."

Cyr also added his surprise at the low voter turnout.

“We should have had a higher turnout and I thought SGA should have done more to ensure a higher turnout,” said Cyr, “Considering there were 1,300 last year, to go from 1,300 to 500 was surprising.”

Alvarado’s strong support amongst freshmen and sophomores may indicate future support for the current senator, who touted new ideas and a more practical, conservative platform.

"I'm really glad I didn't drop out and I'm very excited for next year to work with the new e-board and start working on some of the things I promised. Just because I wasn't elected doesn't mean I'm going to abandon my promises," she said.

"I haven't decided yet if another campaign might be possible for next year it will all depend on my graduation plans and my study abroad plans but for right now my focus is finishing off Spring 2010 strong and starting Fall 2010 with the same drive," she added.

“It was tough to see some awesome people lose in their races,” said Plamowski. “Martha Alvarado and Jeff Cyr were excellent candidates, and are even better friends who I would have loved to have had on the e-board. Unfortunately things didn’t work out for them but I know they’ll both still be dedicated and hard working for the Suffolk community next year. That’s who they are as people.”

Migliacci, a freshman, won each class by a comfortable margin and will succeed current secretary Christina Panagiotakos, who is graduating.

"It is great to know that I had so much support in this election," said Migliacci. "I would like to say thank you to everyone who has supported me.

“He ran a very quiet campaign,” said LeFort of Migliacci, who campaigned mostly in the final weeks of the election. “I told Brad this: ‘You gave a lot of people a scare [by waiting so long to campaign].’”

Kreiling will not return to her seat as Senator for the Class of 2011 but plans to attend SGA meetings and stay involved with the group. She is also in the midst of a campaign for Vice President of the Massachusetts College Democrats.

“I wish Brad the best of luck,” said Kreiling, “I think he is a very dedicated and sincere individual. I think he will go far and SGA will be much improved by his being a part of it.”

"Bianca ran a great campaign. She is a strong leader," said Migliacci, adding that Kreiling is an "excellent candidate" for Vice President of the Mass. College Dems. "I give her my full support and ask that Suffolk does as well."

Roughly 500 voters submitted ballots this year, as opposed to roughly 1,300 last year, a decline that LeFort attributed to a new voting system run by SUConnect, delayed campaigns, and the lack of a challenger in the presidential race.

“I think people just like to vote for president, and [Vieira] ran unopposed,” he explained. “Also last year we went out right away and started our campaigns, this year the candidates waited longer. And I think people still need to get used to SUConnect.”

Plamowski agreed, saying that the uncontested President spot “cut down on a lot of the hype that one would normally see in an SGA election. The other big factor was the use of SUConnect for the balloting. The whole process of logging in and looking through the site for the poll probably turned a lot of Students away.”

Last year voting was done via E-Ballot, which simply asked for a student ID and then directed the voter straight to an online poll. The SUConnect process was slightly more complicated, explained LeFort, because it voters had to pick from multiple links and the login before finding the correct ballot.

"It was surprising, and disappointing," said Migliacci of the low turnout. "Hopefully next year SGA will be able to spark more interest and help encourage more students to become involved and vote."

While he expressed disappointment with the low turnout, LeFort remained optimistic about the amount of participation in the elections, particularly among the class senators.

“It’s good to see that people are interested,” he said, indicating the wealth of fresh faces among the senate.

But he was a bit discouraged that the candidates in this year’s race ran mostly reserved campaigns.

“I had a few conservations with candidates about how to campaign and I tried to be unbiased,” he said, “So I was a little bit surprised it was such a quiet campaign. Although I know there was some back-and-forth on Facebook and in the media” over the vice president race.

Also elected to SGA seats were Roxxangely Correa Torres and Alexa Golden, both of whom were made Senators at Large along with Jarrett Wadbrook, who received 7 write-in votes.

Andrew McDonald won for Senator for the Sawyer School of Management, and Lina Rodriguez for Senator for Resident Life.

The Senator for Diversity seats - which late last semester were a source of much dispute - were settled, with Andy Deossa and Wadbrook both receiving seats.

Scott Zalatoris received 29 write-in votes and will become with Senator for the College of Arts and Sciences. There was no candidate for the Senator for NESAD seat.

In answering the ballot questions, voters overwhelmingly supported having a student representative on the university’s board of trustees: 380 voted in favor and 33 voted against.

The measure to look into adapting the smoking policy around doorways also received heavy support, 332-93, and LeFort said that the SGA has already begun discussing the matter of moving smokers away from the doorways to academic buildings.

“We’re not trying to eliminate the smoking” altogether, LeFort clarified, adding that voters clearly showed that their support for changes in smoking policy.

And in the third ballot question, 235 voters said that they make use of the newspaper program, with 190 answering that they did not. The question was designed to gauge the fiscal value of the program, said LeFort: if no one was using the program, the SGA might consider cutting its funding.