Ducks Together won 17 seats in this year’s ASUO election in a massive landslide. All of the candidates running under Ducks Together won seats, and all received more than double the number of votes than their United UO competitors. Two United UO slate members, both of whom were unopposed, won seats.
Maria Gallegos, Ducks Together’s presidential nominee, will take the oath of office on May 23, and all new ASUO officers will start working on May 25. Imani Dorsey, the Ducks Together candidate for internal vice president, and Ivan Chen, the Ducks Together candidate for external vice president, will enter office alongside Gallegos.
“I’m just really proud of everyone,” Gallegos said. “I’m really grateful for everyone’s support and that students really resonated with us as well.”
Gallegos said that she thought her presidential slate would lose the election after United UO was discovered to have violated multiple election rules — including campaigning before it was allowed — during the campaigning season.
In an interview with the Emerald, United UO presidential candidate Jacob Faatz said that the campaign’s representatives who violated elections rules “probably missed” the specific rules they violated.
“My guess is that they probably read them,” Faatz said, “but they missed that the current elections board stated that there is no canvassing allowed in the dorms.”
A total of 1,846 students voted in this year’s ASUO election, an increase in the number of votes from last year’s unopposed election, when 1,439 students voted — just 4 percent of the University of Oregon student body.
Some election results still have not been released. The results for two elections for senatorship positions and three elections for financial committee positions are all pending as the write-in candidates are counted.
Only four total votes, all of which were write-ins, were cast for the Arts and Humanities Graduate Studies Senator position, the position which received the fewest votes this election. Other positions were not far off — seven total votes were cast for the first Education and Undeclared Senator position, and eight for the second Education and Undeclared Senator position. For reference, a total of 1,486 students voted for a presidential slate.
All ballot measures passed. The number of vice presidents an ASUO president can have will be reduced from two to one for the 2019-2020 school year and on, and the election procedure for multiple position seats will now have individual elections as opposed to having all members of a winning campaign be elected to a committee.
ASUO will also revise the ASUO Constitution to reference UO policy rather than other documents, and ASUO will also be encouraging the UO to do more to implement its Climate Action Plan.
Newly elected officers will begin ASUO orientation to transition into their new roles on April 25.