The ASUCD Elections Committee announced on Friday afternoon that Danny Garrett, Mo Torres, Justin Patrizio, Laura Pulido, Jack Zwald and Erin Lebe have been chosen as ASUCD‘s newest senators, representing the student body from fall 2008-2009.
Thirteen percent of the student population – 3,028 students in total – participated in this quarter’s election, about 330 more than last year’s fall election.
“For this election cycle, we were predicting a low turnout because there were fewer candidates and not as many hot button issues,” said Adam Thongsavat, ASUCD Elections Committee chair. “But we are still really happy about it, and are looking forward to the next election.“
After an exhausting five weeks of campaigning, the six former candidates were overjoyed to hear their names announced over the microphone, as Thongsavat read out each of the names from first to ninth, ranking each in order of votes.
Danny Garrett, ranked first out of the six elected candidates, was surrounded by a group of friends and supporters who burst into ecstatic cheers as his name was announced in the first spot for ASUCD Senate.
“I feel awesome,” he said. “I’m really humbled and happy. Thank you to all my friends, and the people who helped with my campaign. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
The other five candidates – which ranked Torres, Patrizio, Pulido, Zwald and Lebe – were equally excited, and energetically jumped up and down, hugging their friends and fellow candidates, despite their self-proclaimed sleep deprivation.
“We were working until 5 a.m. on the campaign – Facebooking, and phone banking,” said Laura Pulido, who ran with the LEAD slate. “I’m really happy, but it’s bittersweet because of Joemar,” she said of her fellow running mate Joemar Clemente, who was the only member of the LEAD platform not elected to a spot on the senate.
Junior philosophy major Justin Patrizio was one of three independent candidates, and the only candidate elected to ASCUD Senate who did not run with the LEAD platform. As an independent, Patrizio plans to hold his own in the senate despite the LEAD majority, and looks forward to working on budget issues to advocate more funding for campus programs.
“Starting next week, I want to go through the budget and look at it line by line to figure out where to make cuts,” he said. “It’s a little intimidating to be the only independent, but I respect all the people who got elected, so I’m excited.”
MICHELLE IMMEL can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
