To all those who voted Corey O'Brien into the Undergraduate Student Government presidency, congratulations. Congratulations for letting his lofty sounding, impractical ideas fool you into thinking that he actually cares about the student body.

Congratulations for not being able to look beyond the gimmicks (yes, O'Brien was the one with the gimmicks, despite what some O'Brien posters implied) and the one-sided attacks (on Bokee's agenda) to see who the more qualified candidates really were.

Congratulations for not realizing that Josh Bokee and Kerith Strano have more pertinent experience between them than O'Brien and Kara Annechini do, and that they had the more down-to-earth, more practical platform.

O'Brien should not even have been able to run. He is the chief justice of the USG Supreme Court and would have stayed in the position for the rest of his stay at Penn State.

Technically he should have resigned (not merely taken a leave of absence) from the court before announcing his intention to run for president. He found a loophole in Section 2 of the USG Supreme Court Procedures Act that allowed him to campaign while maintaining (or should I say neglecting?) his chief justice position; the amendment that prevents students from running for one post while holding a position in another government branch doesn't take effect until next year.

Bokee, on the other hand, has done a great job as Undergraduate Student Government Senate president. He brought organization to a senate that was in chaos when he came in last year. True, Bokee almost lost his position in early March, but facts regarding that story must be considered.

First of all, consider that timing of the incident -- it was only a month until election time. Secondly, Government Relations Chairman Mike Burcik and town Senator Chris Tobin, who brought allegations against Bokee, are (informally) O'Brien supporters. Thirdly, it is true that Bokee missed two meetings that he should have attended, but he did arrange in advance to have his "legislative vacancy" filled. Finally, look at the vote -- four senators voted for Bokee's removal, 14 voted against.

Now the court currently does not have enough justices required to form a quorum (seven). There have been at least two court vacancies throughout this academic year; one would think that Mike King and O'Brien would be able to fill the court given that much time.

James O'Rourke, who resigned from the court a few weeks ago, felt "Mr. O'Brien's running for office had interfered in the supreme court being an unbiased and competently run branch of USG," which moved him to ask O'Brien for a vote of confidence IF O'Brien attended the meeting.

O'Brien claimed that meeting was the only one he'd missed during the campaign -- neglecting to mention it was the only one the court had had. Meanwhile, of the six remaining justices (which includes O'Brien), three were involved in O'Brien's campaign. Corey Fangio is O'Brien's roommate and close friend; Emily Seppelt was given the duties of chief justice regarding elections issues earlier this month by O'Brien. Go figure.

Congratulations also are due to those people who claim they did not know who to vote for. Maybe the Collegian did not cover the campaign as well as it should have (although personally I think it did a good job).

Even if that were the case, you should have taken the initiative and found out for yourself who the candidates and what their platforms were.

You could have attended a debate or talked to the candidates themselves. You had opportunities; you did not take advantage of them.

As for those who didn't even vote -- all 35,400 of you (give or take a few) -- your apathy astounds me. Believe it or not, USG really does try to do its job, whether you know what that job is or not. If you don't know, it is your duty as a Penn State student to find out what its functions are. This is YOUR school, and it is your responsibility to vote on issues that directly affect you. This will hold true for the rest of your life as well.

Well, it's too late now. As Bokee said, the students have made their choice, and O'Brien is now president-elect (much to the delight of King, I might add). Maybe it's a good thing -- for Josh, I mean, not for us. After all, the presidency is a stress-filled and thankless job and comes under scrutiny quite often. Beware, Corey.