Andre Rubio was elected to the vacant ASUA Senate seat last night after he defeated Dominick Plado by collecting 59.1 percent of the 1165 votes.

Rubio, a political science junior, will take office immediately, and said that he is excited to get to work by picking up where his campaign left off.

“”I am really excited, but hopefully this is just the beginning,”” Rubio said. “”I have got a lot more work to do; hopefully it won’t be as sweaty since I won’t be out in the sun as much, but I will definitely be out there. So this is definitely not the last you have heard from me.””

Kenny Ho, Associated Students of the University of Arizona election commissioner, said that both candidates ran great campaigns and that the results of their work could be seen by the amount of people that voted.

“”I was super excited; I was not expecting that 1165 (votes),”” Ho said. “”We were trying to break a goal of 1000 (votes), and we broke that.””

Despite the final result, Plado, a political science junior, said that he enjoyed the campaign experience and planned to become a part of ASUA.

“”I had a lot of fun with this campaign,”” Plado said. “”I did the best I can, and I was on the Mall. All day my friends were really, really supportive. I am really, really thankful for all of my friends’ support…I already talked to (Sen.) Gabby Ziccarelli and (Sen.) Nick (Macchiaroli) and told them that I wanted to be one of their senate aides.””

Rubio said that the campaign had taken a toll on him and that he was looking forward to going home and taking a deep breath.

“”Tomorrow I am going to mostly be at the office just to check in, fill out some paper work, but then I am gone. I’m going home. I miss home. I have got to see my parents and my family,”” Rubio said.

ASUA President Tommy Bruce said that he is excited to once again have a full senate to work with.

“”Andre was a staff member of mine, so I know he can do great,”” Bruce said. “”I know Dominick could have done great – either one would have been great, and now we have one so we will get them trained and get them ready for next Wednesday(‘s Senate meeting).””

Rubio said that he used various networking tools to try and get as many people to vote as he could.

“”The Facebook group (that my team created) was really a product of a good team I had and really, the good support that I was able to find,”” Rubio said. “”My team and everyone else did well, and they actually showed up to the polls; they didn’t lie to me.””

While ASUA was excited about the voter turnout, the number of people that voted actually represent about three percent of the student population at the UA.

Despite this fact, Bruce said that a general election usually attracts about 4000 voters, so the fact that the special election was able to attract as many people as it did was a true accomplishment.

“”I was actually thrilled with the amount of voter turnout,”” Bruce said. “”It was one of the highest we have ever had for a special election.

“”There was no presidential candidate or executive driving a lot of votes. It was only two candidates running,”” Bruce said. “”Both candidates put forth a very respectable, genuine interest in wanting to be senators and they worked really hard.””