It seems we have egg on our faces. Or pie, as the case may be.
In Friday's "Boos & Bravos," we booed ASU students for losing our pie challenge. On March 29, we promised to take pies in the face if 10 percent of undergraduates on the Tempe campus voted in the Undergraduate Student Government presidential election.
Based on our calculations late Thursday night, the 4,619 students who cast presidential ballots were about 50 students short of the mark.
In response, a couple student government officials (who, quite frankly, seemed far too eager to start chucking pies) sent us e-mails claiming we were using the wrong enrollment numbers in our calculations.
So we checked it out today, and amazingly, they were right -- there are 36,858 undergraduates enrolled at ASU Main this semester. That means a 12.5 percent slice of the undergraduate pie voted in the presidential election. So Bravo to the students who voted, you more than doubled last year's 6 percent turnout.
While we may have lost the bet, it looks like we were right about something else: Students need a gimmick to make them vote. This year's USG election offered little more than last year's batch of promises: fliers stuck in students' faces and a barrage of colorful signs.
Sure, some posters looked like prom ads, we were offered a couple cookies and we even saw a pinata or two floating around the Memorial Union, but we're not sure if that was really enough to explain the explosion of civic virtue to come out of the student body this year.
Maybe it was the sea of candidates that increased numbers. Or perhaps there's some political enthusiasm left over from November's presidential debate that hasn't manifested itself in letters to legislators or trips to City Council meetings.
Or maybe (just maybe) students responded to the promise of delicious cream and/or fruit filling all over our faces.
And students were even voting for legitimate candidates, since USG told us last week you couldn't write someone in unless the candidate had filled out the correct paperwork beforehand.
Guess presidential and vice presidential hopefuls Jack in the Box and McDonalds filled out their paperwork. Otherwise, the one student who voted for the duo would have been out of luck.
But enough of that. It's "pie" time we got down to business and gave the rules for this pie-throwing shindig.
The pies will start flying Monday at 12:30 p.m. on Hayden Lawn. As stated in the original editorial, each editor will supply one pie (of our choice, not the student government's) to be thrown at us by the new USG president-elect and vice president-elect.
Anyone is welcome to come watch the festivities. Since we can't guarantee the accuracy or power of the pie throwers' tosses, we suggest not wearing your favorite outfit.
