A few minutes before 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, the Joint Election Committee Chairman Patrick Rizk braced himself.

“Don’t trample me!” he yelled across H Street to the mob of students ready to bolt toward the Marvin Center to tape up their posters for the upcoming Student Association elections. He pointed to his fellow JEC members. “And don’t trample them.”

At Rizk’s “Go!” crowds of students restrained by yellow tape bolted across the street, election posters flying, ready to fight for the best wall space in the University’s most public areas.

“I was the first one up here,” said sophomore Josh Josephs. “I caught that prime real estate right there.”

Josephs, who rose at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning to support SA presidential candidate Kyle Boyer, was one of many students to participate in one of the campaign season’s biggest and most cutthroat events – postering.

“I came out here this early because I really believe in my candidate,” Josephs said.

Like Boyer, candidates for all SA offices arrived early Wednesday strong in numbers, leading teams of poster-hangers labeled with candidate nametags on both their chests and backs.

“I have a wonderfully dedicated team out with me this year,” said Michael Komo, who is pursuing an at-large senate seat. “We’ve done this before and we know how intense it can be. It’s important to get the very best spots.”

Komo’s strategy was similar to that of most of his competitors – to hang as many posters as possible in the heavily trafficked buildings on H Street.

“We’re running straight across to the Academic Center and the Marvin Center,” said freshman Josh Goldstein as he added several more pieces of masking tape to his Coca Cola-themed signs for CCAS senator.

Presidential candidate Julie Bindelglass arrived in Kogan Plaza in the dark hours of the morning to prepare her posters for hanging. Like many other candidates, Bindelglass and her team pretaped the back of many posters prior to the 7 a.m. kick-off to make hanging them faster and easier.

“I’m just really excited about these posters,” Bindelglass said. “They emphasize that this campaign really focuses on everyone working together, that this is the campaign for the student.”

Jamie Bright, Bindelglass’ campaign manager, later stood against a wall in the Academic Center when her masking tape ran out, bracing the posters against the brick and protecting her claimed territory until more tape arrived.

“If I have to stand like this for a week to get Julie elected, then I will,” Bright said. “Julie Bindelglass is the candidate for president and I will do anything to see that she gets elected.”

Junior Thomas Cavett, a member of executive vice presidential candidate Louis Laverone’s team, said he could handle the 30 degree temperatures if it meant supporting his candidate.

“Louis is an upstanding guy,” he said. “I trust him. He’s the man.”

Laverone’s posters – which he said capitalize on his hair to use a Stephen Colbert theme – are now part of the sea of campaign signs covering the walls of the Marvin and Academic centers, as well as University Yard. Barely a minute and a half after the JEC allowed candidates and their teams to sprint across the street to begin hanging posters, the buildings’ brick facades had been covered completely by the quick work of the stampeding students.

“We’re going to hit the ground and hope for the best,” Rizk said. “We’re hoping for no fatalities.”