Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Elections!

This week students sponsored and ran two fair and free elections for the first KAUST student council. The five of us who were involved in the planning were really, really busy!

On Saturday, eleven students were elected to the student council, one from each academic major. The speeches were good, and some races were quite close! I was impressed with the quality of every candidate I saw run.

Men and women from all different nationalities came to submit their votes.

Voter turnout was phenomenal - almost sixty percent of the students came to vote! Some of the students come from countries where they have never had an opportunity to vote, and some come from countries where the people are disillusioned with the voting process. An Italian told me that this was the first election he had participated in because he felt that it would be fair and his vote really would matter!

I've never seen so many people so happy to be voting... do we not take the privilage seriously enough in the USA anymore?

We got several compliments about how professional the job was; I am glad that everything ran so smoothly.

Opening the ballot box after elections are over.

Counting 223 votes for 36 different candidates completely accurately was no small feat.

We were really excited to finish, well done guys!

The final makeup of KAUST's first student council is as diverse as the student population itself. One is from Europe, two are from China, three are from the USA, four are from Mexico, and the other twelve come from many different countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

I think we made history yesterday.

9 comments:

  1. I read your blog regularly. I move to KAUST at the end of October to join my husband Brian. Way to go on holding the elections. It's important to have a voice. Looking forward to meeting you all soon.

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  2. Thanks for reminding us of this privilege we enjoy. And it looks like it makes Kaustians happy!

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  3. Great job orgainzing and conducting the first student elections of KAUST! You wrote an excellent story -- did you used to write news articles for some newspaper somewhere? And superb illustration of it all with the great photos!

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. nice work :)
    i wish you all the best and happines in your life's.

    regards,
    Moath

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  6. Hey Man chill out a little pit !!

    I read your blog and I read the article man and I think that the writer at Al Yaum news paper has not plagiarized your words, because he did not used your words. So chill out man !!

    I agree with you in one aspect. That the writer of the article should rescource the statistical numbers that is it and no more. Otherwise, I think that you need to look for a good lawyer or at least have strong proofs that the article's writer quoted you exactly.

    Man you are "awesome" <<< You cracked me laughing

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  7. Hey Man chill out a little pit !!

    I read your blog and I read the article man and I think that the writer at Al Yaum news paper has not plagiarized your words, because he did not use your words exactly. So chill out man !!

    I agree with you in one aspect. That the writer of the article should rescource the statistical numbers "that is it" and no more. Otherwise, I think that you need to look for a good lawyer or at least have strong proofs that the article's writer quoted you exactly.

    Man you are "awesome" <<< You cracked me laughing

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  8. one more thing >>> the two pictures

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    ReplyDelete