The winner of today's Tufts Community Union (TCU) presidential race between junior candidates Melissa Carson and Alison Clarke will be announced late tonight, after the online election closes at midnight. After ten days of heated campaigning, the two juniors can only sit, wait, and encourage students to vote.
"Who the president is will determine how the Senate is run and how effectively your needs are addressed," Carson said. "If you want to know your interests will be taken care of, you need to make sure that you click on the link and vote," she said.
Clarke agreed. "It's really important that students understand the power they have with their vote to make significant changes to the Senate," she said.
Today's elections come after chalkings, posters, and flyers featuring the candidates' names and slogans have wallpapered the campus for days. "I think it's important for candidates to talk to students," Clarke said. "I've got flyers in the bathroom where you wouldn't normally see them."
But Carson has expressed disdain for the advertising "wars" that TCU candidates have historically waged. "I'm not about inundating people with paper," she said. "I'm about talking to them about problems and ideas. The only good thing from this propaganda war would be a high voter turnout," she said.
Clarke agreed that her extensive advertising would result in more student involvement. "The more people see information about the election, the more they will be involved with it," she said.
While the candidates have designed separate campaign platforms, their backgrounds are what differentiate them. This is the area where they expect voters to be most swayed.
In addition to being the outgoing vice chair of the TCU Judiciary board, Clarke has been a writer for the Observer and is the president of a self-coordinated AIDS outreach group. While double majoring in psychology and Spanish, Clarke also is co-president of the Psychology Society and on the student-advisory committee to the Task Force on the Undergraduate experience.
In Clarke's campaign to move from the Judiciary to the Senate, she has focused on using her outsider's point-of-view to promote change. Her flyers proclaim she is, "Bringing a Fresh Face to the Senate."
"The Senate needs a mentality change this year," Clarke said. "I've talked to hundreds of students and 90 percent don't know what the Senate does. I have been watching the Senate for two years now and I understand how they work but I also understand how they need to change."
As this year's TCU Senate Vice President, Carson defended the senate in its current form. She agreed it needs to work harder to get closer to students, but said, "We're all aware of the issues - it's a matter of how we're going to fix them."
"I want to find a balance between what appears to be 'tooting our own horns' and letting people know of our accomplishments," Carson said. "People see the Senate as elitist but when we try to tell people what we do it comes off as bragging. We're normal students who spend large amounts of time working on campus issues - but we're still normal students."
While pursuing a double major in child development and philosophy, Carson serves as a photographer for Outbreath. She also is a member of the Leonard Carmichael Society and Hillel.
This year on the Senate, Carson has backed accomplishments including the development of a new TCU e-mail list, the installation of a new ATM machine in Dowling Hall, and the lobbying of the administration to strike Jackson College from women's diplomas.
She said she had tried to use this past to work for her, encouraging people to "Vote experience. Vote results. Vote Carson."
Carson said she chose to get involved with Senate in her sophomore year when she realized how much was occurring on campus that she wasn't aware of. "I didn't like life happening to me. I wanted to have some say in it," she said. Carson has served on Senate for one and a half years.
In contrast, Clarke has served on the TCUJ since her sophomore year. While Clarke reflected positively on her experience, she said she wanted to switch to the Senate because "the [Judiciary branch] was too administrational."
"My goal, wherever I am, is to create a positive change for the people... I want to make broader changes - the Senate is the best way to work on bigger projects," she said.
Both candidates laughed at the notion being told in their freshman year they would run for TCU President. "Freshman year I hadn't found my place at Tufts yet. I didn't know about student government at all," said Clarke.
Carson agreed. "Freshman year I just wanted to meet a lot of people and learn about everything. It was college. I just wanted to party," she said.
Clarke did not make the decision to run for the presidency until this spring. "I thought other people would be running who would make the changes I wanted to happen." When those plans fizzled, she decided to put her name on the ballot.
"A lot of people encouraged me, including last year's TCU President David Moon. I wouldn't have wanted to run if students didn't want me to," she said.
Carson felt similarly about her choice to run for the position. "My support has been a coalition from across political, cultural, and ideological spectrums," she said. She thought her involvement in other campus organizations could work in her favor today by allowing her to reach a wider range of students. "Student government isn't all I do. It's not my life. It's just something I love. I don't like the elitism. I like the productivity of it."
Clarke said she thought she could win the election because she believes in "Senate accountability. Senators don't pay attention to students right now. I think the outsider perspective will work for me."
As the votes come in today and the candidates watch the clock, the race could go either way. "It's really hard to predict," Carson said.
