Students Choose Service, We Think (Thanks for the Clarity, USG!)

Princeton students have voted to donate both the Fall 2009 Lawnparties main act and USG Senate Pilot Program funds to "Student-initiated service projects" over not donating the money at all or donating the funds to Annual Giving. At least, that's according to a PDF released by the USG earlier today.The catch, however, is that the document only shows first place votes - the actual vote will be tabulated by single transferable ballot (basically, everyone ranks their choices 1 through 3, and the people who voted the least popular item first have their second choice counted instead.) Pretty much, it doesn't look like anything will change from these results, but if it does the USG will have once again found a way to bungle an election.We go inside the numbers and break down how the vote happened after the jump.Lawn Parties Vote:"Student-initiated service projects" - 1008 votes (42% of the vote)"I would not like to donate these funds" - 941 votes (39%)"Annual Giving" - 465 votes (19%)The big news here is that students voted overwhelmingly (61 - 39) to do something with the money other than host the Quad concert. But the difference between the service projects and not donating the funds is only 3 percent of the vote, with Annual Giving coming in a distant third. Our instincts say the people who voted for Annual Giving first would vote service second, but that is as of yet pure conjecture. But for now, looks like a victory for the PACE center.Senate Pilot Program Vote:"Student-initiated service projects" - 1262 votes (54% of the vote)"I would not like to donate these funds" - 659 votes (28%)"Annual Giving" - 430 votes (18%)Annual Giving got roughly the same percentage of the vote, but service projects saw a noticeable uptick, to a clear majority - no ballot transfer necessary. Turns out, no one cares about the Senate Pilot Program other than the Senators.The lesson here seems to be that students are willing to give up money for a good cause. It will be interesting to see the breakdown of the transferable ballots - if service wasn't an option, would Annual Giving have beaten not donating the funds? Stay tuned...(image source: http://www.princeton.edu/pace/undergraduate/getting_started/)