Despite a lower voter turnout and an uncompetitive election race for yesterday’s primaries, candidates for ASUA vowed to increase their campaign efforts.
The polls closed at 8 p.m. with 1,358 total votes cast, not even half of last year’s primary voter turnout of 3,426. This year’s primaries were unusual in that none of the candidates were eliminated from the race, because the number of candidates did not exceed the number of positions.
“”All the candidates passed on to the general election, so these elections served more as a way for the candidates to check on where they stand in comparison with one another,”” said Associated Students of the University of Arizona’s Elections Commissioner Amy Adamcin, a junior majoring in business administration and marketing.
Tommy Bruce, ASUA president, a junior majoring in business administration and marketing, won unopposed with 89.7 percent of total votes cast.
Executive Vice President Jessica Anderson, a senior majoring in business administration and marketing, ran for the same position, taking home 69.4 percent of the total votes and fairing 633 votes better than Chasen Moses, executive vice president candidate and an aerospace engineering senior.
“”I’m excited to know where I stand,”” Anderson said. “”Up until this point we had no idea how we were doing, so it’s good to see that campaigning matters and I plan to take advantage of this last week, when most students are aware of the elections.””
Senator Seema Patel, a biology junior, won for administrative vice president, with 250 more votes than Senator James Pennington-McQueen, a history senior.
Patel said voter turnout is a reflection of the candidate’s outreach efforts, and the low number of student voters means ASUA needs to do a better job in reaching-out to students.
“”It’s not just that students are apathetic, it’s that they don’t know what student government can do for them, and it’s our job, especially in this next week, to engage them in this process,”” Patel said.
Pennington-McQueen said he was tied-up with midterms last week and didn’t have enough time to campaign as he would have liked, but would begin a walking-campaign, where he’ll walk students to class and tell them about his campaign.
Only 10 out of the 14 students running for senators will be elected in the general election ballot.
Emily Fritze, a political science freshman, and Jason Mighdoll, a pre-business sophomore and the executive vice president chief of staff, tied for the most popular senators, with 612 votes cast, accounting for 10 percent of the total vote.
Samantha Morris, an anthropology junior, was one of the candidates for senate receiving the least amount of votes, pulling in 302 votes and 5 percent of the total ballots cast.
Morris said she wasn’t discouraged, but planned to work harder on promoting her campaign and staying in the race.
“”This just means I need to get out there more and meet more students,”” she said.
Morris said she plans to make a more visible presence on the UA Mall, and will rely on help from her Kappa Delta Chi sisters to get the word out to students.
General elections will be held March 11 and 12, and students can cast their vote electronically using Student Link.
