Student Government elections results released

By: Gabriel Arrarás / News Director

Defeating the Alina Gonzalez and Kevin Gonzalez ticket by a margin of 852 votes, Patrick O’Keefe and Sanjeev Udhnani have been elected President and Vice President, respectively, of the Student Governing Council at Modesto Maidique Campus.

Speaking with Student Media after the traditional celebratory dip in the Graham Center fountain, O’Keefe said that he was “really happy” with voter turnout and that he looks forward to relaxing from campaigning before getting “back to work next week.”

O’Keefe and Udhnani held 57 percent of the vote, in an election which saw voters turn out in record numbers.

“I have never seen this much excitement from the Student Body,” said Assistant Director of Campus Life and SGA Adviser Jose Toscano. “I have never seen numbers like I have seen this year.”

A total of 6,301 voters turned out for the elections, a number which Toscano hailed as a true milestone in SGA history.

Vice President of Student Affairs Rosa Jones held the podium in the Graham Center pit, ushering in what she called a “new beginning” while announcing the election results to a large crowd of students.

For the SGC-MMC Honors College senate seat, Jose Garcia was elected with 65 percent (57) of the vote over his opponent Fabio Pineda.

The position of SGC-MMC Housing senator had four candidates running for two seats. Larry Brown and Dean Williams were elected with 28 percent (137) and 20% (97), respectively. Thayron Latham had the majority of the votes for this race with 34 percent (167) of the vote, however, he was disqualified from the race. Janiel Vargas also lost the race with only 16 percent (79) of the vote.

The SGC-MMC Senator at Large position, which consists of three seats in the senate, was one of the most contested races. Kristen Robillard led the race with 38 (2031) percent of the vote, followed by Carlos Rodriguez who had 27 percent (1460) of the vote and Samir Patel who had 18 percent (969). Leonardo Evora lost the race with 14 percent (770) of the vote.

The Lower Division senate race had six candidates competing for four seats. Liane Sippin led the race with 28 percent (603) of the vote, followed by Mizael Ponce with 19 percent (404), Kevin Hernandez with 16 percent (355), Nicole Buchely with 15 percent (323). Rudy Leal-McCormack and Carlos Chueca both lost the race with ten percent (229) and eight percent (182) of the vote, respectively.

The Graduate Senator race had four candidates running for four seats. Rachel Emas led the way with 42 percent (122) of the vote, followed by Adeel Jamal with 23 percent (68), Sai Penagamuri with 18 percent (54) and Dharam Persaud with 15 percent (44).

The College of Arts and Architecture race was uncontested, allowing Daniel Diaz to win the lone senate seat with 155 votes.

The race for College of Arts and Science Senator had five candidates competing for five senate seats. Cristina Bosmenier led the vote with 37 percent (739), followed by Sebastian Larrazabal with 23 percent (473), Giovanni Correale with 15 percent (316), Donovan Dawson with 14 percent (292) and Juanita Louis eight percent (161).

The College of Business Administration race had five candidates competing for three seats. Leading the way was Cesar Chuquizuta with 26 percent (224) of the vote, followed closely by Gabriel Freitas with 25 percent (210) and Adam Redolfi with 24 percent (200). Robert Ibarra and Daniel Ramirez lost the race with 14 percent (118) and ten percent (85), respectively.

In the Engineering and Computing senate seat race were three candidates competing for two seats. Andrea Fajardo held an overwhelming majority of the vote with 52 percent (384), followed by Fernando Pinheiro who had 33 percent (248) of the vote. Ekaete Ekwere lost the race with only 13 percent of the vote (99).

The College of Public Health had only one candidate running for a single seat. Janis Verwey was elected with 158 votes.

The races for the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, College of Law, and College of Education had no candidates available to run thus the seats will remain empty.

Meanwhile in Panther Square at the Biscayne Bay Campus, the SGC-BBC results were announced simultaneously with the SGC-MMC results.

Running unopposed, the new SGC-BBC President and Vice President are Denise Halpin and Emilio Collyer, respectively. A total of 267 students came out to vote for Halpin and Collyer.

The BBC College of Arts and Sciences senate race had two candidates competing for three seats. Both Farah Yamini and Daniel Usma were elected with 64 percent (60) and 35 percent (33) of the vote, respectively.

The BBC senate seats for Hospitality and Tourism Management went to Yiran Song and Xin Zheng who had 57 percent (19) and 42 percent (14) of the vote, respectively. HTM only has two seats in the Senate.

For BBC Senator-at-Large, Odimayo Oluwatamilore was elected with 270 votes.

All other SGC-BBC Senate races had no candidates running. These included: School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Nursing and Health Sciences, Pines Center, Graduate Senator, Lower Division, Housing and Business Administration.

About Post Author