Ashley Toth and Claudia Toth won the Saint Mary's freshman class council elections Friday with 55 percent of votes, becoming class vice president and president, respectively.
McCandless residents Claudia and Ashley Toth, who are not related, will lead the freshman class for the remainder of the 2003-04 academic year.
Primary elections took place Tuesday via PRISM, after which the ticket was narrowed from six candidates to two: Monica Lindblom/Kristen Bogdanowicz and Claudia Toth/Ashley Toth. The Toth ticket was behind by three percent of votes following Tuesday's election.
In order to make themselves known to their class, Claudia and Ashley campaigned until the last possible minute.
"The last night, we went around a second time to all the dorms, to each room," Claudia said. "I was very, very excited. I was very nervous the whole night."
The Lindblom/Bogdanowicz ticket garnered 44 percent of the vote, with a total of 32 percent of the first-year class voting.
The Toths intend to begin their work immediately.
"Ashley and I had a list of things that we wanted to accomplish on our platform," Claudia Toth said. "We will probably start with the surveys - getting the class' ideas and going from there."
Their platform consisted of several main points, including maintaining a line of communication between freshmen and student government, working to establish a "Belles General Store," establishing better relationships with the Notre Dame freshman class and continuing class apparel.
The surveys fall under the communication goal, Claudia Toth said. She will soon be sending an e-mail to the entire freshman class with contact information.
"I'm available to them if they need anything at any time. That would be the one thing I would stress to them," Claudia Toth said. "We want to listen to the needs of our classmates so we can get done what we need to do for them. We work for them."
Students will receive e-mails from the newly elected officers on a regular basis. Claudia Toth intends to send out surveys monthly. E-mail will also be used to notify freshmen of happenings at student government meetings.
"We want to keep the class updated constantly," she said.
