It felt like dj vu all over again - one candidate received just over 48 percent, and the other received just under 44. The election will be decided by a dorm vote in the Student Senate. But unlike the initial dismay shown at the outcome of the student body presidential election, the candidates for the officers of the class of 2006 took the news in stride."We had a good laugh about it," said Vijay Ramanan, who will vie with Steve Miller for junior class president. He added that being familiar with the Senate process made the announcement less of a shock."The worst thing is when you don't know what's going to happen, and you kind of know what's going to happen now," he said. "It could go either way, but I don't think I'll spend time worrying."Miller said after a tightly contested primary race Monday, he and his running mates had been prepared for the Senate scenario."In the back of my mind, I was afraid something like this would happen," he said. "It wasn't a pleasant surprise, but after the Ebersol-Istvan situation, it didn't catch me completely off guard."Judicial Council president Elliot Poindexter, who informed the Miller-Ben Zerante-Patricia Adams-Erika D'Addabbo (48.2 percent) and the Ramanan-Lauren Mullins-Lauren Hallemann-Emily Short (43.8 percent) tickets of the results Thursday night, agreed observing a similarly close race unfold just two weeks before was a definite advantage for the candidates."Because [a Senate decision] already happened, I thought they handled themselves a lot more respectfully than Ebersol and Istvan did," Poindexter said. He said the winner would be decided at Wednesday's regularly scheduled Student Senate meeting, and declined to release dorm vote totals to The Observer.Of a total of 966 votes, Miller's ticket received 466 and Ramanan's ticket received 423, with the remaining 77 accounting for abstentions. The decreased participation meant that every vote carried a greater weight, Poindexter said. "Traditionally the numbers go down from a primary to a runoff anyway," he said. "It's a lot closer because there are a lot fewer votes."The class of 2005 race was nearly as close, with the Darrell Scott-Lauren Flynn-Tom Raaf-Kristin Boyd ticket beating the Katie Boyle-Brian Agganis-Sarah Bates-Stephanie Aberger ticket by 50 votes, 515 to 465. The Scott ticket earned 59.9 percent to Boyd's 45.9 percent with 3.2 percent abstaining. Scott praised his opposition, saying Boyle had been "great competition" and that he looked forward to working closely with her and her running mates during the year ahead. Boyle could not be reached for comment.
