Campaigning for next week’s ASSU elections kicked off at at midnight yesterday, as candidates gathered in White Plaza to begin flyering.

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ASSU Senate Candidate Raffi Mardirorsian chats with potential voters in Stern Dining. The campaign season kicked off Wednesday at midnight, and candidates spent the day flyering, glad handing, and getting to know peers at organized dinner events. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/7139
Joel Lewenstein

ASSU Senate Candidate Raffi Mardirorsian chats with potential voters in Stern Dining. The campaign season kicked off Wednesday at midnight, and candidates spent the day flyering, glad handing, and getting to know peers at organized dinner events.

“We probably had 30 or 40 candidates in White Plaza,” said Elections Commissioner Bernard Luis Fraga ‘08. “They had been staking spots for about four hours before. White Plaza is now full of flyers.”

Fraga said that the grounds maintenance staff removed some flyers.

“[There was] a little catch this morning due to a mix-up,” he said. “The Stanford grounds maintenance staff took down a lot of flyers and banners this morning and candidates had to put them back up.”

Fraga also noted that over 100 candidates are running in the Apr. 11-12 elections, including a record five Executive slates.

Flyering was the most popular strategy for outreach in the opening salvo of the week-long campaign. One of the Executive slates, Hershey Avula ‘08 and Mondaire Jones ‘09, also distributed T-shirts and placed an ad opposite that of fellow Executive candidates Brett Hammon ‘08 and Lakshmi Karra ‘08 in table tents in dining halls across campus.

Along with a “Promote the Vote” elections party at The 750 featuring GSC and Executive candidates, “Meet the Candidates” dinners were the centerpiece of yesterday’s campaigns. Candidates visited Stern Dining and Wilbur Dining last night and will do so again tonight, before moving to Lagunita Dining and Ricker Dining on Monday and Tuesday.

Candidates reacted favorably to the meet-and-greet style of campaigning featured at the “Meet the Candidates” dinners.

“Apparently in the past they’ve tended to do debates, but the Elections Commissioner wanted it to be more one-on-one meet the candidates, and he decided to set up more events like this where you go around and speak to people one-on-one,” said Anthony Bestafka-Cruz ‘10, a candidate for the ASSU Senate.

“I think it’s actually a good opportunity to meet the voters and show the candidate more as a person and not as a flyer,” added Raffi Mardirosian ‘10, another Senate candidate. “Most of the flyers, if you look at them, they look pretty much the same. So it’s just an opportunity to show the voters that I’m a real person and tell them what I have to offer.”

Students expressed mixed reactions regarding the campaign kick-off yesterday.

Criticism of the Office of Student Activities (OSA) — prevalent on many flyers — resonated with Xavier Gaeta ‘09.

“The issue of the OSA and its management is a major campaign issue,” he said. “Hopefully it will reverse the trend that the OSA has been taking towards bureaucratizing a lot of the social activities that have been happening.”

Yuhao Ding ‘09 expressed disappointment with some of the flyers he has seen.

“I don’t like it when people make campaign promises they can’t keep,” he said, referencing various candidates’ promises to eradicate the caterpillars on campus.

Rance Graham-Bailey ‘09 said he would have preferred more traditional debate-based campaigning.

“The flyering is crazy,” he said. “I’m somebody who’s very interested in the political process. I see people putting all of this effort into flyering for a few things they’re gonna work on. I like debates. I like speeches.”

The campaign period will last until Tuesday and voting will occur online Wednesday, Apr. 11 and Thursday, Apr. 12. For more information on the elections, visit http://elections.stanford.edu.