Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 165, NO. 45 | Tuesday October 28, 2008
InDEX
4 · Opinion
5 · Lifestyle
S1 · Voter Guide
8 · Classifieds
9 · Crossword
12 · Sports
Climbing Everest:
Local band teams up with
Neil Young. PAGE 5
Thomas’ Time: Cornerback
steps up with third interception
of season. PAGE 12
By natalie chau
Daily Trojan
In preparation for another year
of infamously raucous Halloween
parties near its campus, the
University of California at Santa
Barbara has released a letter to
area universities, including USC,
asking visitors to avoid Isla Vista,
which is known for its out-of-hand
Halloween bashes.
The statement, written by
UCSB Vice Chancellor for Student
Affairs Michael D. Young, aims
to discourage visitors by in-forming
universities in Southern
California that their students
could face a broad range of conse-quences
— including jail time —
should they choose to come to Isla
Vista for Halloween.
According to UCSB, 80 to 90
percent of those usually arrest-ed
on Halloween are not from the
Santa Barbara area.
Catherine Boyer, Isla Vista/
UCSB liaison, said the letter is es-pecially
necessary for students
around Southern California be-cause
they are unfamiliar with lo-cal
laws.
UCSB issues
Halloween
warning
UCSB administrators warn
that out-of-town Halloween
partiers could face time in jail.
| see letter, page 3 |
By dan doperalski
Daily Trojan
More than halfway through the fall semester,
Undergraduate Student Government is set to hold elec-tions
Tuesday and Wednesday for a commuter senator po-sition
that has so far remained vacant.
Samantha Chaikin, a senior majoring in neuroscience,
is the only candidate running for the seat. If elected, she
will fill the fourth and final USG commuter senator spot.
USG has had difficulty filling its commuter sena-tor
seats. During elections last February, when current
President Jens Midthun was elected, the organization was
only able to find one commuter senator to run. After two
special elections this semester, two more seats were filled,
but the fourth remained empty.
“We have always had a tougher time getting commuter
senators to run,” said John Legittino, USG senior director
of communications.
Legittino said USG members posted flyers and spoke
in front of student groups to publicize the senatorial po-sition
but could not find someone to run for the post until
Chaikin stepped forward.
“The reason why it has taken so long was because de-spite
all of our attempts to get people to apply for the job,
nobody did,” he said.
Residential Sen. Phil Ehret, a friend of Chaikin’s, advised
her to run for the position because he knew she commuted
to campus and thought she would be a good fit.
“It sounded like an amazing opportunity,” Chaikin
said.
USG to hold
commuter
sen. elections
Samantha Chaikin will run unopposed for a seat
that USG has had trouble filling thus far.
| see election, page 2 |
By SHWETA SARASWAT
Daily Trojan
After a two-month marathon to
register students to vote, campus
groups shifted their focus to make
sure those new voters actually cast
their ballots Nov. 4.
But for USC students, voting isn’t
always as easy as swinging by the
Marks Tower polling station on the
way to class.
Because of the way voting pre-cinct
lines divide the USC campus,
many students will have to travel a
ways off campus to reach their des-ignated
polling place. Students living
in Webb Tower, for example, face a
one-mile hike to the Roger Williams
Baptist Church near the intersection
of Adams Boulevard and Ellendale
Place.
Concerns over confusion about
where to vote on and around cam-pus
have heightened this cycle in the
wake of issues at on-campus polling
places during the California prima-ry.
Nelson Chen, chair of the USC
chapter of the California Public
Interest Research Group, said many
students who flocked to Marks Tower
in previous elections did so simply
because they did not know that poll-ing
stations were area specific.
“A lot of people were an-gry,”
Chen said. Individuals
who went to the wrong
polling place had to fill out
provisional ballots, which
might or might not have
been counted.
While most housing
complexes have a poll-ing
station assigned to
them, residents from
the Radisson Hotel and
Tuscany Apartments live
in a vote-by-mail precinct that is part
of the 31st Congressional District,
not the 33rd Congressional District,
which encompasses much of the
North University Park area.
Though they are not assigned a
physical polling station, Pablo Castro,
section head of precincting in the
mapping section of the registrar’s of-fice,
said students registered at those
addresses can cast provisional bal-lots
at the polling station located at
Vermont Avenue Elementary School
near the intersection of Adams
Boulevard and Vermont Avenue,
which is part of the same congressio-nal
district as Radisson and Tuscany
and will therefore be using the same
ballot. The reason the school wasn’t
formally assigned to vot-ers
living in the Radisson
and Tuscany, Castro said,
is that the polling station
was considered too far
away from the housing
complexes.
Castro also said a pre-cinct
must have at least
250 registered voters to
be assigned a polling sta-tion.
Otherwise, the vot-ers
in that precinct are
automatically sent absentee ballots
well before the elections and are re-quested
to either mail those ballots
back or turn them in at any polling
place on Election Day.
“That sucks,” said freshman Tori
Cameron, who said she was plan-ning
on figuring out where to vote on
Election Day itself. “Now I don’t even
want to vote because it’s so inconve-nient.
... I’ll try to see what I can do.”
In final days, student groups prepare to battle poll confusion near campus
Some student residences,
including Tuscany, have no
designated polling location.
| see polling, page 2 |
Joshua Sy | Daily Trojan
Vote · USC students have shown unprecedented enthusiasm for this
year’s election, but voting might not be as straightforward as it seems.
Behind director Erik Forrester, a professor at the USC Thornton School of Music, the
Thornton Percussion Ensemble performs a program of conventional and experimental per-cussion
pieces. Many of the featured pieces are compositions by Thornton students.
Beat It
Brandon Hui | Daily Trojan
7
Days Until
Election
COUNTDOWN
Special Voter Guide Page S1
See page S8
for a map of
polling
stations.