Ariana Twitchell carried 1,118 votes in the President of the Union race, followed by Mark Anderson with 430 and Eric Griffith with 273.

"We still have a lot of work to do," Twitchell said. "There are still two days until the election is over, and there’ll be no stopping until Thursday night at 11 pm."

The race for Grand Marshal saw Gil Valadez leading with 869 votes, followed by William Bobrowski with 543 and Lisa Bucellato with 371.

"I’m happy to have come out on top," Valadez said, "but more importantly I’m happy about gaining momentum for the party platform."

Apollo’s platform, according to Valadez, is "Students First." Valadez said he hopes the interest shown in the elections can be translated into more involvement in student government year-round.

Despite Valadez’s strong start, Bobrowski still plans to fight for the position. "I’m not out of the race yet," he said.

Bobrowski sees the greek constituency as one of his most important challenges.

"I think it’s necessary to make the greeks understand that I am the only competent candidate," he said.

He elaborated that although he is an independent, he supports the greek system. "I think it’s a benefit to this campus," he said.

The results, which were announced Monday night in the McNeil Room of the Rensselaer Union, determine which two candidates in each race will go on to the final elections. The top two vote-getters in each race will be on the ballot for the Thursday election.

Lisa Bucellato, who will not be returning for the final elections, said she was impressed with the support she got. "It’s phenomenal. It really is," she said. "I was very pleased with the overwhelming support."

She said she was glad she got her message out, and she hopes whoever wins will take it with them. "I think a lot of people appreciated that I wasn’t just saying vote for my face or vote for my name."

1,982 ballots were collected at the poll sites in the DCC, the Commons, and the welcome desk in the Union throughout the day on Monday.

Will Schulze said he was drawn out because he wanted to see changes in the way student government works. "Everything always seems to be very muddy around here," he said. "It seemed like there wasn’t a lot going on with the Senate [this year]."

"Just looking at some of the platforms of the candidates, it seemed to me that a couple of them were more interested in trying to revamp things," he said.

Other students were turned off by the lack of pressing issues. "None of the issues [the candidates] really addressed other than parking concerned me," said Kevin Maclagger.

Still others saw a lack of options. "I think that all the parties basically represent the same exact thing," said Aaron Mayauski. "I’m a freshman here … I don’t know what all the problems of the school are yet. The only problem I can see right now is the parking problem, and that’s a pretty general problem."

Mayauski felt that each of the candidates expressed an interest in solving the parking issue, so he thought progress would be made no matter which candidates were elected.

Issues weren’t the only things that drew students out to the poll sites.

Relatively few people attended the primary debates on Sunday, and many said that they did not plan to see the final debates on Wednesday either.

Elisabeth Edwards admitted she didn’t have any real concerns, but she voted because she knew one of the candidates. "I know the one guy used to do a really good job, and he’d enjoy it."

Of course, there is also the infamous GM Week mug. Several students attested to voting purely for the mug.

For Maclagger, the mug didn’t cut it. "I’ve got enough mugs," he said.