The Student Activity Fee Endowment (SAFE) reform referendum reached the number of votes required for it to be valid.

As of noon today, 2,002 votes were cast in the referendum with more than a day of voting left. Two-thousand votes were needed to validate the results.

Had the total number of votes failed to surpass 2,000 the referendum would automatically be rejected regardless of the percentage in support of the reform. The Election Commission is expected to release the results shortly after midnight Thursday.

In the meantime, make sure to let Vox know what you think by voting in our poll.

12:15 a.m. update: 741 votes have been cast as of 11:49 p.m., according to GUSA Election Commission member Adam Giansiracusa.

Original post: Voting begins tonight around midnight for the Student Activities Fee Endowment (SAFE) reform referendum.

The reforms passed their first obstacle when the Georgetown University Student Association Senate voted in favor of the referendum earlier this semester. In order for the changes to take place the referendum must be voted upon by the student population as a whole, with a minimum participation of 2,000 students. The referendum will automatically fail if it does not reach the required number of voters.

Voting is open until 12 a.m. on Friday.

After you vote, or abstain from voting, or get tired from trying to understand why so many acronyms are used at Georgetown, vote in our poll.

Who knows, maybe our poll can get more votes than the actual GUSA referendum?

It’s Georgetown University Student Association election day, all day!

The polls close at 11:59 p.m. tonight, and vote counting will take place all day tomorrow. Student Election Commissioners have said that ideally, they will disclose the results of today’s GUSA Presidential Election to the winners of the election, GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12), Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ’12), and campus media Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m.

But we know you want to know how your ticket is doing now. So, take our poll: who did you vote for today?

If you made it through the nine rounds of IRV voting in the first election, you probably noticed the Exit Poll GUSA tacked on to the end. GUSA Speaker of the Senate Eden Schiffman said the poll was an effort to figure out who was (and was not) participating in GUSA and what was most important to them.

The Freshman and Sophomore classes cast the most votes—31% of voters were Sophomores, 29% were Freshmen. Blame it on being jaded or simply smaller class sizes, the Junior class accounted for only 20% and the Seniors were a mere 12% (7% didn’t respond).

Voting was pretty estrogen-heavy, even if the field of candidates wasn’t. 49% of voters were female, 42% were male (9% didn’t respond).

The racial breakdown was a pretty accurate reflection of the University’s composition. The participation rates for minorities were slightly higher than their percentage of the student, body, but not significantly so. 67% of voters identified as White (non-Hispanic), 7% Hispanic, 8% African-American, 9% Asian, 7% Other and 12% did not respond. According to statistics on the University website, 6.4% of students are Hispanic, 6.7% are African-American and 8.7% are Asian.

The biggest determinant in who people voted for was face-to-face meetings (56% of voters checked that box), followed by candidates’ platforms (34%). Club and Paper Endorsements came in last, influencing a measly 13% of voters. So much for the power of the Fourth Estate…

Some took the free-response “What are you looking for in your candidates?” question as chance to engage the time-honored Georgetown past-time of GUSA-bashing—one response was “Inability to deal with simple problems and overall ineptitude”—but most answered pretty earnestly. Common themes were leadership ability, dedication to the job, charisma, enthusiasm, experience, honesty and the ability to represent students and communicate with administrators.

There was a split between those who wanted the president to address the school’s alcohol policy—“alcohol policy reform” was one of the most common phrases—and those who wanted to move past it, i.e. “Someone who seems to understand there is a world beyond the alcohol policy.”

It looks like the national presidential campaign trickled down into GUSA race a bit. One voter wanted someone with “the strength to lead in this post-9/11 world, while others were looking for “change I can believe,” “Someone who can bring change. Like Matt Appenfeller. Yes we can .. hope” or, to put it bluntly, “A president that is like Barack Obama.”

A few wanted a nominee who would channel past-presidents—“Ben Shaw Re-incarnated” or “twister 2.0, someone with a cool name.”

Here are a few of my other personal favorites:
“Attractiveness, Promiscuity, Drinking Habits, and Religion”
“Being a sweet bro and magical powers”
“Chicken, Bacon, Cheese, Onions, Peppers, Bread, Barack Obama”
“feathers and ability to count. Seriously. No, seriously.”
“Height, Hair and Optimism.”
“Someone who is chill and not a pinko, gay loving, anticatholic communist”
and, finally, whoever wrote “The Voice’s endorsement is key”