Students at colleges across New Jersey had two options concerning the gubernatorial election Tuesday: to vote or not to vote.
Shortly after 10:30 p.m., Republican Chris Christie was declared the winner, beating Democrat Gov. Jon S. Corzine as well as Independent Chris Daggett. Students at the College expressed mixed emotions at the election results — and New Jersey politics.
One student believed Daggett, who won about five percent of the vote, upset the ballot and took votes away from Corzine.
“Of all the third party candidates, why did it have to be Daggett?” Marlowe Boettcher, senior political science major, said. “He’s moderately boring … I don’t understand what his appeal is.”
Although a registered democrat, Boettcher said he does not identify as one. Instead, he labeled himself as “left.”
Other students were happy with the way things turned out.
“I’m glad we got change,” Chris Rodrigues, freshman accounting major, said.
Rodrigues did not vote in the election. Boettcher also did not vote, saying he didn’t think to get an absentee ballot and did not want to drive all the way home just to vote.
A student who did vote expressed her unhappiness with the election, as well as with politicians as a whole.
“Polticians don’t make a difference in getting what people want passed,” Andressa Leite, sophomore international studies major, said.
She also said student activist groups have to do more “now more than ever.”
Leite, who voted via mail-in ballot, said she is a member of the College Democrats but, like Boettcher, does not consider herself a democrat. She described herself as “far left but not Socialist.”
“(The College Democrats) is a social group for me” she said.
The College held some events this fall that were geared toward the gubernatorial race, but not as many as were originally intended.
Loretta Weinberg, the Democratic Lt. Gov. candidate and Corzine’s running mate, visited the College on Sept. 30.
A debate between the top candidates had been scheduled to take place in October at the College, but was canceled.
