Liz Ashworth was elected Vice President (Activities) for 2012/13 on Friday Week 18 after five tense rounds of voting.
Throughout the rounds she battled with fellow candidate Matt Haslam for the position, with Haslam leading by a small margin in the first four rounds. Ashworth, however, won the final round, with 988 votes to Haslam’s 972, a mere 16 votes between them.
In the first round of voting, Haslam had 668 votes, Ashworth 643, Rob Dickinson (Dicko) 462, Richard Cadd (Caddy) 358, Jack Taylor 326, and RON 71. RON was then eliminated.
The second round saw Haslam receive 674 votes, Ashworth 649, Dicko 463, Caddy 361 and Taylor 329. Taylor was then eliminated.
In the third round, Haslam took 747 votes, Ashworth 716, Dicko 505 and Caddy 392. This resulted in Caddy being eliminated. The fourth round saw Haslam gain 811 votes, Ashworth 806, and Dicko 563. Dicko was eliminated, and in the fifth and final round it was revealed that Ashworth had claimed victory.
Ashworth was understandably emotional and began her acceptance with the words “I always said that no one likes the ugly crying girl” raising laughs from the crowd crammed into the Sugarhouse. When interviewed by SCAN later on in the evening, she went on to say, “I never expected to win at any point. I’m speechless at the moment! I’m really thrilled and grateful.”
Marc Handley felt that the closeness of the voting showed that the student body cared about who their next Vice President (Activities) is. “I’m really, really happy for Liz. All of the Activities candidates were phenomenal,” he said.
Handley was also pleased with the election results as a whole, commenting that he thinks “it’s a really strong team, it’s going to be a tough year next year and if there’s one person who can lead them, its Ste.”
Finally, Ashworth wanted to thank the people who voted for her, “I owe the people who voted for me everything, they probably don’t realise how much it means to me but I am so grateful and I know that I was up against some brilliant candidates.”
