“Elliot Spillers will be the next president of the Student Government Association at The University of Alabama. Spillers defeated Stephen Keller in Tuesday’s election, election officials announced to each candidate. According to the Keller campaign, Spillers received around 8,000 votes out of around 14,500 total. According to data provided to the United Alabama Project by Kelli Knox-Hall, that total is the most since the 2009 election (14,469), surpassing last year’s total of 10,276. Spillers is the first black president of the SGA since 1976, when Cleo Thomas won the position.”
http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/03/Elliot-Spillers-wins-SGA-presidency
The CW had endorsed his opponent, Stephen Keller, who was also backed by The Machine. Sounds like both candidates were well qualified:
http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/03/stephen-keller-for-student-government-association-president
His race shouldn’t matter, but given the recent controversy surrounding the issue of race at UA, this is a breath of fresh air. AND The Machine was defeated!!! Hallelujah. I don’t know how they did it. He got a lot more votes than Keller. Anyone have any inside info on how the Machine managed to lose this one?
I wonder if it was just a numbers thing, @Atlanta68? The university is much larger today than it was just 10 years ago, and a lot of that growth has come from out-of-state students, many of whom have chosen not to go Greek. At present, it’s only about 34% of the student body that is part of a fraternity or sorority and the number associated with The Machine is even smaller.
Wow! Proud of all students who came out and voted. :)>-
Enjoy your reading: http://welcometothemachine.info/archives.php
The Esquire April 1992 article was my first introduction to it.
I don’t think the emphasis on the all white aspect of the Machine is its biggest problem, though that is what the media loves to focus on. Its more a problem of classism. The great majority of Whites are not in Machine Greek houses.
Darn. I voted for the other guy.
While i think it’s great that a black kid was elected (and he sounds amazing, btw), i’m more put-off that the fraternities and sororities seem to run that campus…great if you’re wanting that kind of experience…but kind of tough for kids who might think that they can avoid greek life but still have a large say in how things are run on campus.
^^^Yes, but the black kid beat The Machine candidate. That’s progress.
And he beat him with a large majority. Anyone have any inside info on whether there was a split in the Machine this year? I know that Spiller received support from at least a few big traditionally White Greek houses. That has been done once before, in 1976, when Cleo Thomas, the first Black student to become SGA at UA, managed to get the support of a number of White sororities.
All I know is that DD posted on her FB that Spillers was elected with multple exclamation points - so I assume she supported him. She is a member of a large popular sorority, but it is also known as primarily an OOS house. I would assume the OOS greeks aren’t as married to The Machine as the legacy and In State students.
Just like the “real world” political system…it’s all about turning out the vote. That’s why Machine candidates win so often. Not all sorority and fraternity members vote the same way, but if you can get enough of them to do it, you can easily win an election. Independents can form a party and do the same thing, but rarely do.
No, they were both white.