It looks like hundreds of dollars and countless hours spent blanketing the campus with posters and fliers may pay off for Michigan Student Assembly candidates.
"I voted mostly because of name recognition from the fliers I have seen," said LSA sophomore Rachel Goldner.
And she was not alone.
"Name recognition helped," said LSA junior Jessica Herman. "I'm a junior so I've seen the same names on posters and on the ballot before."
Even on North Campus where posters are more scarce, voters said the colored sheets guided them in their choice.
"This is my first year here so I didn't know what the parties stood for," said Rackham first-year student David Cabral, who voted at the Pierpont Commons polling site. "I voted for people I saw on the posters even though they are really only up in one building."
But not all voters were swayed by the hundreds and hundreds of printed advertisements.
"I tried to ignore the posters and names printed everywhere because they don't tell you anything," said LSA junior Jenni Slate.
To complement their posters, many candidates clogged the outside of the Fishbowl throughout the day.
"I actually want to go to class," said LSA Rep. and Michigan Party candidate Mike Nagrant. "I want to go because it's warmer in my Chem 260 class than it is on the Diag."
Independent candidate and LSA Rep. Barry Rosenberg said the cold was the only guarantee he had.
"You never know until you count - I don't know if turnout is good or if my chances are good," Rosenberg said. "But I do know for sure that it's cold."
MSA Election Director Angie Blake said the first day's turnout was pretty low.
"The quads are down a little bit but the Hill dorms are doing very well," Blake said last night. "But last year's Thursday voting took everyone by surprise because the numbers were so high - that could happen again tomorrow."
But some students said they had no interest in voting.
"I'm studying now and I've got better things to do today than vote," said Kinesiology sophomore Atyia Bussey, who was sitting about 10 feet from the Michigan Union polling site.
Other students said they felt it was their duty to cast a ballot.
"This means a lot to me. Voter apathy on this campus is rampant," Herman said. "I think it's important to vote - I always do."
On the ballot, students had the option of voting for up to eight candidates, but some said eight different votes was too many.
"I didn't vote for all eight," said LSA first-year student Cara Monroe. "I just voted for three candidates, and those were names I saw on posters."
Students had mixed feelings about the three fee-increase ballot questions.
"I didn't know anything about the ballot questions but one said something about community service," Goldner said. "I voted yes on that one because I'm a supporter of community service."
But other students were not willing to see their fee go up.
"I was opposed to all of (the fee increases) because I don't see their usefulness," said Engineering first-year student Ken Barr. "I'm a fan of the pay -to-play system - I'm only in one student group and we don't get money from MSA, we raise our own funds. Why shouldn't other groups do that?"
Blake said the first day of elections went very smoothly.
"We didn't have any major problems - nothing we couldn't work out," Blake said.
One transportation mishap forced the Bursley polling site's opening to be delayed for about a half hour. Voting there was then slowed even more by a shortage of pencils to fill out ballots.
"These things happen," said poll worker and LSA-Student Government President Paul Scublinsky. "We'll stay open later if people here still want to vote."
AJA DEKLEVA COHEN/Daily
LSA senior Michael Leonard casts his votes for MSA representatives yesterday in the Michigan Union.