SPORTS >> PAGE 8
VARIETY >> PAGE 6
The College began its two-game homestead with a 2-1 loss to Elon Wednesday
College radio station begins weekly live shows at the Crust; continues WCWMFest
Tribe falls in overtime
Vol. 102, Iss. 8 | Friday, September 21, 2012
WCWM rocking out
The Flat Hat The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
of The College of William and Mary
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Election 2012
Registration activity permeates campus
Organizations tackle voter registration
Senate candidate’s wife visits College
bY STEVEn LOVERN Flat hat STAFF WRITER
bY CRISTINA MARCOS Flat hat STAFF WRITER
The November election is closing in fast with 46 days left until students will be able to enter the voting booth. The last day to register to vote is even closer, at only 24 days away: October 15. The Student Assembly has led the charge in voter registration on campus, already registering 503 students, according to the SA’s Director of Voter Registration Zach Woodward ’14. Factoring in other student organizations’ voter registration drives, over 1,000 students have registered to vote on campus since late August. “Since freshman move-in, W&M for Obama has registered hundreds of students of all political stripes to vote in Williamsburg,” Noah Kim ’13, Organizing Fellow for the group William & Mary for Obama, said in an email. “We will continue to register new voters locally until the Virginia deadline on October 15th because, as half the population of Williamsburg, students will decide which way the City of Williamsburg goes in November.” The importance of voter registration has even broken down some partisan barriers. “As an organization we believe in offering everyone the opportunity to vote. Keeping track of numbers or achieving quotas is not our main purpose,” Young Americans for Romney Chair Madelaine Spangler ‘13 and Students for Romney Chair David Branton ’13 said in an email. “Although we have registered quite a few students on campus, we do not think that we should only register those who side with us politically. Voter access and the preservation of free elections is fundamentally more important.” Many of these newly registered students in Williamsburg are not even first time voters. “I would say the majority of students seem to change their registration from some other place, but I would say about a quarter of those registered thus far have never registered to vote before,” Woodward said. Some students are choosing to vote absentee while at school, since the College of William and Mary will be a closely watched swing state during this election cycle.
Anne Holton, the wife of former Virginia Governor and Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine, visited campus Wednesday to help the Young Democrats register students to vote in the November elections. Holton thanked the group for its work in registering students to vote in the swing state of Virginia. She emphasized that these local-level efforts were key to the campaign’s success in one of the nation’s most closely watched congressional races. “We are fundamentally a purple state, and that’s a good thing in many ways, among others that we get attention from all the nationals. But it does mean we do get the $10 million in negative ads as part of the attention too, so it means that what you all are doing to register folks and get people out to vote is really important,” Holton said to the assembled students. William and Mary Young Democrats President Zach Woodward ’14 said that over 1,000 students had registered to vote in Williamsburg since the start of the semester. Before visiting the voter registration drive, Holton was on campus to promote Kaine’s educationreform proposals at the College of William and Mary School of Education. Kaine faces former Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen in a race that political handicappers believe could decide which party controls the Senate in Jan. 2013. Both parties view the Virginia seat as key to winning Congress’s upper chamber. Allen is running for the seat he held until 2006, when he lost to now-retiring Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., by less than half a percentage point. Webb’s victory became the final seat Democrats needed to clinch a Senate majority. A Washington Post poll released Wednesday found that Kaine led by 8 points over Allen, 51 percent to 43 percent. It marked the first time that Kaine had opened a lead in the Post’s polling of the Virginia Senate contest. Until then, the previous two Post polls had showed the race in a statistical tie. Similarly, a poll by Quinnipiac University, CBS News and The New York Times also released
See voting page 4
courtesy photo / TANNER RUSSO
TYLER DUNPHY / THE FLAT HAT
courtesy photo / KAINE FOR VIRGINIA
Top: Former First Lady of Virginia Anne Holton meets with students working on voter registration on campus; Bottom left: Students register to vote in the Sadler Center Bottom right: Holton at the Young Democrats’ registration table
See holton page 4
STUDENT ASSEMBLY
Sexual assault incident reported to College police
Packed ballots in upcoming SA elections
A female student at the College of William and Mary told College police that she had been sexually assaulted Sept. 15. According to an email sent by Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D. ’06 to the College community, the student reported that incident occurred near Barksdale Field and involved an acquaintance who “approached the female student and touched her in an unwanted and inappropriate manner.” “As a campus community there is much we can do, both individually and collectively, to support one another, and to stand together against sexual violence in all its forms,” Ambler said in the email. Ambler reminded the community of the resources available to support those who have been the victims of sexual assault or abuse. These resources include not only the Counseling Center and the Dean of Students Office, but also the College’s sexual assault website at http://www.wm.edu/sexualassault. — Ken Lin
Competition for Student Assembly positions began early Tuesday morning when campaigns kicked off at 12:01 a.m. Election Day is scheduled for Sept. 27, and all social classes will hold elections. After a spring election season marred with 18 complaints of SA Code violations, the Elections Commission hopes to better enforce the SA Code for fall elections. “The Code is pretty much exactly the same as it’s been, we’re just really trying to make sure it’s enforced,” Chair of the Elections Commission T.J. O’Sullivan ‘13 said. “In the past, we had a lot of leeway given and a lot was kind of opened to interpretation. We’re taking a very conservative, hard-line stance this year.” Door-to-door campaigning, which has been vaguely defined in the past, will not be tolerated all, according to O’Sullivan. In years past, a different set of people managed the fall and spring elections. This year, however, the Elections Commission
Index
News Insight News News Opinions Variety Variety Sports
Today’s Weather 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Candidates battle for open officer positions across all social classes bY katherine chiglinsky Flat hat news editor
selected by the SA senate will manage both the fall and spring election. The commission is also only composed of upperclassmen, with the majority being seniors. “It’s exclusively upperclassmen,” O’Sullivan said. “The reasoning behind that is that we wanted people who could be impartial. There’s no such thing as perfectly impartial, but you don’t want people who have a stake in the race. “ For the Elections Commission, enforcement of the SA Code is key. “The vast majority of the problems last spring would have been avoided if the rules had been enforced,” SA President Curt Mills ’13 said. “If we set a decent tone for the freshman elections, we’ll have fewer problems in the spring election.” The fall elections will fill some social class vacancies on the Undergraduate Council. The Undergraduate Council, comprised of each class’s officers, handles programming for class events and Homecoming. In addition, senior class officers help to manage the senior class gift. “Just by tradition, [the Council’s] pretty
Inside opinions
The consequences of too much technology
Sunny High 82, Low 61
When we rely too much on technology, our relationships lose meaning and we become disengaged from the real world. page 5
Inside VARIETY
autonomous from the rest of the SA,” Mills said. “I think that the Undergraduate Council is very important, especially with the strides we’ve made in the senior class gift. It’s an enormous development burden, but with more underclassmen on the council, it prepares the next generation to handle that.” For the class of 2013, Naid Allassan ’13 is running unopposed for secretary and Austin May ’13 is also running unopposed for treasurer. The class of 2014 has four people vying for the Vice President of Social Affairs position: Charles Richard Lampkins ’14, Neal Friedman ’14, Sally Schoenfeld ’14 and Jyness Williams ’14 are all in the running. Alexis Caris ’14 is running unopposed for secretary. The class of 2015 also has a packed race for Vice President of Social Affairs. Cassidy Fazio ’15, Christopher Johnson ’15, Katherine Marie Ault ’15, Leo Del Rio ’15 and Joseph Laresca ’15 are all competing for the position. Kameron Melton ’15 is running See CAMPUS ELECTIONS page 4
Brackenbury comes to campus
New Donaldson Writer in Residence kicks off semester at the College with a public reading of her work. page 7