STUDENT ALLIANCE NEARLY SWEEPS ELECTION

After a week of cutthroat campaigning, the results are finally in, favoring, for the most part, the Student Alliance.
Nischal Vasant, with vice president Shervin Stoney, led the polls with 1,153 votes, beating the ONE Party by 200 votes. The Slice Party received 187 votes.
Vasant is the first international student to ever be elected Student Association president.
"[This is] insane; I feel like I'm representing a whole different world," Vasant said. "I feel like I will be the change I want to see in SA."
Taking the treasurer position for the Student Alliance was Antonio Roman with 1,210 votes, beating ONE Party candidate Ryan Linden by 354 votes.
Also winning for the party was Amanda Horn with 1,062 votes, Franklin Ramirez with 982 and Marcus Catlin with 942.
"I feel the [win] was deserved; I feel the party that worked the hardest won," said Ernesto Alvarado, current SA president. "Both [parties] came from my administration, so I was happy with either win. I can't wait to see what kind of stuff they do for next year."
For Vasant, the next step is to relax and get life back to normal after weeks of campaigning, then start worrying about next year.
"First, I have to surround myself with people who [I] can trust, that do the job they want to," Vasant said. "I want to make sure that we deliver in every promise that we've made. We're going to print out the platform, paste it up somewhere and check mark everything that we accomplish on there."
After three days of intense campaigning, political drama and adjusting to new rules, Vasant was thankful for his supporters and all who turned out to vote.
"It's been an insane amount of stress," Vasant said. "I've seen four elections now [and] I've never seen an election like this. It's just been crazy. I cannot say how much I thank everyone who supported me, to give me the opportunity to make this the organization that it can be and to reach its potential because that's all I want to do from the very beginning."
Roman was surprised at the win since, according to him, people said the party wouldn't be able to get to this point in the race, and they would never win on honesty and loyalty.
"We were worried 'til the very end," Roman said. "We said we would fight every day like we were losing and wouldn't take anything for granted, and we didn't and this is the result of it. Everyone sees the hard work that we've done throughout the years and with that, they had the confidence to elect us to be their officials next year."
Amanda Jonas of the ONE Party was the only non-Student Alliance member to win a delegate seat, receiving 960 votes.
The position was not met with enthusiasm. Immediately after the announcement, Jonas verbally announced she wanted to decline the position to chair of the Elections and Credentials Committee, Joshua Boston. However, as of press time, Jonas is rethinking her decision. She must provide her decision in writing for it to become official.
Among the reasons Jonas has debated to drop out was the change to rules in the election procedure.
"I think the new rules showed us a lot of things," Boston said. "There are things that worked and things that didn't work. The involvement of the SWJ is very … it's important, you have to have some sort of court oversight."
The turnout for the election was not record-breaking, but over 2,200 students showed up to the polls.
"I think it was an excellent turnout," Boston said. "We had it in the theater. This was the first regular election, to my understanding, that was held in the theater. Students have free range around the [Student Union], around campus, so students are getting the information that they need to go to the polls and vote."

E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com