ASUO Executive candidates Rachel Pilliod and Ben Buzbee will face off against Sean Ritchie and Jason Babkes after the two tickets won Friday’s primary election.
Pilliod and Buzbee took 541 votes, and Ritchie and Babkes nabbed 403, but none of them were among the candidates eagerly waiting outside the ASUO office for results to be posted Friday night. Pilliod said she and Buzbee did not attend the ASUO posting because they wanted to be respectful of the other candidates.
“We are very pleased with the results and excited with next week’s elections and greater voter turnout,” Pilliod said.
Babkes was at a basketball game when he heard the news of his chance to advance to the general election, which starts Wednesday and runs through Friday.
“I am happy that we won, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
Haben Woldu and Oscar Arana placed third with 385 votes, missing second place and a chance to advance by only 18 votes.
As for the candidates waiting outside the ASUO office, many went home visibly disappointed from the end results.
“I’m not shocked. It was the two candidates that I expected to win going into the last day of election,” presidential candidate Eric Bailey said. “I am glad there is one ASUO candidate going on to the general elections. May the best candidate win.”
Bailey and running mate Charlotte Nisser placed fourth with 266 votes, slightly more than last year when Bailey and Jeff Oliver scored 237 votes.
Candidates John Ely and Hayes Hurwitz, who placed a distant seventh out of 10, said they are demanding a recount of votes because they believe the system could have defaulted.
“I am contesting this. There is no way that I only got 144 votes. I work in a sorority house, and they all voted for me, and I had a whole fraternity behind me. Basically, I just want to see proof,” Ely said.
The voter turnout hit 15.3 percent, still short of the ASUO Elections Board’s goal of 20 percent, but Elections Coordinator Courtney Hight said she was still pleased that this year’s tally was higher than last year’s primary, which only hit 9 percent despite an extended voting period.
“We hope to meet our 20 percent goal during general elections,” Hight said. “I think all of the candidates did an excellent job.”
The primary campaign remained grievance-free, but that may change today. The Commentator, which sponsored “subversives-fighting” candidate Tim Dreier, plans to file a grievance with the ASUO because the elections board kept the press outside the ASUO Executive office where the DuckWeb votes were tallied Friday night.
Commentator publisher Bret Jacobson said the move violated Oregon law allowing media representatives to watch vote counting.
“We would like the votes recounted with media presence and the (ASUO Constitution Court),” Jacobson said. “If they recount it, some part of justice will be served.”
Dreier placed last with 98 votes.
A number of ASUO Student Senate seats and other positions were also decided Friday.
The closest contest came in Seat #1, where Sen. Dominique Beaumonte defeated Rick Reed by only three votes, 602-599.
Two other seats had more than two candidates, and the winner will be decided with the Executive in the general election.
Kate Kranzush and Brad Fetrow advanced in the Seat #7 race, beating Sho Ikeda, who ran for ASUO Executive last year on a platform of making dolphins legal housepets and comparing diversity to the Nintendo game “Super Mario Bros.”
In Seat #14, Levi Strom and Abby Lovett advanced, beating Anthony Kuchulis.
And, like previous years, many humorous write-in candidates got a nod for Executive and senate, including Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington, Jesus Christ, football commentator John Madden, “the French judge for ice skating,” ASUO Vice President Joy Nair and former ASUO President Wylie Chen.