Thursday afternoon, Arica Van Boxtel and Bill Niedhardt were declared the winners of the MUSG Presidential election after receiving 57.3 percent of the vote.
Vanboxtel and Niedhardt credit their supporters with their success.
“We had a great team, we just want to thank the student body. We had a team of really supportive people, we owe it to them,” Niedhardt said.
“Their enthusiasm is what did it, we couldn’t have done it without them,” Vanboxtel said.
Drew Halunen and Stephanie Marecki received 42.7 percent of the votes.
Halunen said he and Marecki will take a look at their available options as they move forward.
Current MUSG president Joey Ciccone said he has seen great work in MUSG this year and is excited to see what’s next, athough he and current Executive Vice President Trent Carlson are sad to leave.
“It’s exciting to see the new leadership step up and see what they can do for campus,” Ciccone said.
Despite 41 votes (1.5 percent of the total) being declared invalid because of irregularities such as duplicate votes or ineligible voters, Morgan Johnson, MUSG elections coordinator, said that this was the highest recorded voter turnout, at 2,754 total votes. That measures out to 36.4 percent of the 7,570 eligible full-time undergraduate students.
MUSG began recording vote totals in 2000.
By comparison, the spring 2011 elections saw 2,115 valid votes. The average is 30.4 percent voter turnout since conducted online since 2005.
Zach Bowman, Jilly Gokalghandi, Natasha Hansen and Samuel Schultz won the four seats for the College of Arts & Sciences. There were seven total candidates for Arts & Sciences senator.
Tommy Hayes and Heinz Schlehammer were elected College of Business Administration senators.
Alison Krushke was elected one of two College of Communication senators and Jackie Boratyn was elected as a College of Education senator.
For the College of Engineering, which had two seats available, there was a tie between Steven Lollino and Thomas McKevitt who both received 46 percent of votes. Derek Vandenbush received 49.1 percent of the votes. The MUSG Senate will determine the winner of the second seat by majority vote at its meeting tonight at 7:30 p.m. in AMU 227.
There were no registered candidates for the College of Health Sciences or for the College of Nursing senate seats.
For Senior Speaker three finalists were chosen: Alexandra Bonesho, Alex D. Johnson, and Kelly White. Their names will be forwarded to the committee and reviewed by a selection committee which makes a recommendation to University President the Rev. Scott Pilarz, who selects the student speaker for commencement.
Alex D. Johnson, a senior in the College of Communication, called being a finalist extremely shocking and said it was an honor.
Johnson said this is something he has wanted since his freshman year at Marquette and being a finalist makes it more tangible.
“For me it’s a huge deal, to have the opportunity. It’s an exciting honor to cap my Marquette experience,” Johnson said.
For RHA President, Zachary Henderson received 60 percent of votes and Tarissa Young-Clayborn received 40 percent of votes.