In an unbelievably close race for ASUO Executive, Maddy Melton and Eddy Morales edged out Christa Shively and Greg Bae by only 21 votes in the primary election Friday night. Several ASUO election insiders predict campaigning for the general election will be nothing short of intense.
The primary results identified, for the most part, the two tickets that will compete in the general election. In the few cases where one candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, he or she was elected outright and will not appear on the general election ballot.
Now, students likely will be exposed to ASUO candidates’ passionate efforts to earn votes, as campaigns for ASUO Executive and Student Senate positions become increasingly intense in the days leading up to next week’s general election.
Melton and Morales said their campaign is reaching out to all students. Both candidates are first-generation college students, and they said access to education is their primary priority. They worked together in the ASUO this year as co-multicultural advocates and said their proven ability to communicate successfully makes them best suited for the job.
Shively and Bae also said they plan to win votes in the general student population. With campus involvement between Shively and Bae ranging from the EMU Board to Delta Sigma Phi and OSPIRG, the candidates said the diversity of their combined experiences is what makes them most qualified to fill the ASUO Executive position.
In the finance senator positions, Adrian Gilmore and Alyce Chong garnered the most votes in the race for ASUO Programs Finance Committee Senate Seat 1, while Joe Jenkins and Mena Ravassipour are going on to compete for PFC Senate Seat 2 in the general election, and Beth Overgard and Colin Andries are the top two remaining candidates for PFC Senate Seat 3. Chong is the only incumbent PFC senator who will be advancing to the general election.
Two EMU Board Finance Senate seats are up for grabs, and Gabe
V. Kjos and Rodrigo Moreno Villamar will compete for Senate Seat 4 in the generals. James George was elected to EMU Board Senate Seat 6 because he received more than 50 percent of the votes in that race.
Three Athletic Department Finance Committee seats were on the ballot. For Senate Seat 7, Andrew Faust and Laura Schulthies will be in the generals; Anthony Kuchulis and Jesse Harding will compete for Senate Seat 8; and for Senate Seat 9, Kevin Day won the position outright with more than 50 percent of the votes.
ASUO Elections Coordinator Andrea Hall said she and the rest of the ASUO Elections Board were thrilled with the 15.2 percent voter turnout, or 2,634 total votes cast, in the primary election. While 15.2 percent might not sound like a large portion of students, officials consider it an admirable level of participation. She added she was glad to see that students from groups that usually have little student government involvement ran for positions in the ASUO.
“The presence of so many greek students, law students and many others, added a lot of character to the elections so far,” Hall said. “Those students’ running has reached out to a lot of groups that oftentimes the ASUO is accused of neglecting or not appealing to.”
In the other races, Rebecca Shively has been elected as an uncontested candidate to Senate Seat 11, an academic seat for undeclared majors, because no write-in candidates received enough votes to challenge her.
There were no candidates for Senate Seat 12, the academic senator for Architecture and Allied Arts, so someone will be appointed to this position at a later date.
Stefan Myers will be campaigning against Alicia Lindquist for the Arts & Letters/Journalism Senate Seat 13 in the general election.
With Jordan Marx a clear first-place winner, and Adam Turcott and Kevin Curtin tying for second place, all three will be on the ballot in the general election for Social Science Senate Seat 15.
Jonah Lee and Gabrielle Guidero beat out the other candidates for Science Senate Seat 16 in the primaries, and Bethany Larson won Business Senate Seat 17 with more than 50 percent of the vote.
James Jensen, who ran uncontested, is the new senator for Graduate/Law Senate Seat 18.
Nick Hudson and Sarah Koski will be on the general election ballot for the two-year position on the Associated Students Presidential Advisory Council, but Jonathan Kloor, who ran uncontested, won the two-year midterm seat easily.
Courtney Warner won one of the three two-year positions for the Student Recreation Center Advisory Board with 1,036 of 1,111 votes. Jonah Lee and Noah Glusman, both write-in candidates who met the requirement to advance to the generals, will be on the ballot for the remaining two seats. However, ASUO election rules state that a candidate can only run for one position in the general election, so Lee, who made generals for both Senate Seat 16 and the rec center board position, will have to make a decision about which position he wants to run for.
Joe Snyder, who was uncontested, won the one-year ASUO Programs Finance Committee At-Large position. The status of the two-year midterm positions is unclear, however, as Toby Piering had more votes than sole opponent Cory Phillips, but both were listed as advancing to the general election; Piering did not garner more than 50 percent of the votes because of write-in candidates.
Ethan Firpo, the only candidate running for the two EMU Board At-Large two-year terms, won the position. The two-year midterm seat, however, is between Slade Leeson and Omid Kianersi for the general election.
Adam Amato and Cory Phillips both received the most votes as write-ins for two two-year terms on the Building Fee Committee, and each won a seat because no one ran on the ballot and no other write-ins met the minimum number to go to the generals. Phillips is in the same situation as Lee, where he will have to decide which position he will run for in the general election.
Except for Ballot Measure 15, which was voided because of incorrect wording, all ballot measures passed with more than 50 percent of voters choosing “yes.” Measure 15 and another measure — which was submitted to and approved by the Constitution Court but did not get put on the ballot on DuckWeb — will both be on the general ballot.
Whatever the result of the general election, which runs from April 21-23 on DuckWeb, many candidates said they will be representing many more students than they have in previous leadership positions.
Instead of a small, streamlined group of students, most of those who win the general elections will have the arduous task of fairly representing every student and student group.