ASI election results announced

Presidents ticket runs unopposed, wins ASI elections

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Eric Jaramishian - The State Hornet

Noel Mora and Rachael Dal Porto as they hear the results of the ASI elections on April 11, 2018, at the elections party. The president’s ticket, consisting of the two candidates, ran unopposed for the president and executive vice-president positions.

Eric Jaramishian

 

The presidential ticket of Noel Mora and Rachael Dal Porto won after running unopposed in the Sacramento State Associated Students, Inc. elections on April 11-12.

The position of president was one of five positions that had just one candidate running. Of the 13 positions available, an additional five will remain vacant running after the results were announced on April 12.

Last year when Mia Kagianas won the presidency, just three positions, including hers, were contested while 10 candidates ran unopposed.

Mora is presently the ASI vice president of academic affairs and will be taking over the office currently held by Kagianas at the beginning of the fall 2018 semester. Mora said his previous role will help him on ASI’s biggest stage.

RELATED: ASI Election approaches with small number of candidates, no ballot measures

“It helps to be able to know who to go to, what structures are in place to be able to navigate those, and then advancing the issues that we want to tackle and to improve the quality of life on campus,” Mora said.

This was the first year that the use of slates were not allowed in the race. Slates allowed students running for different positions to campaign together, especially if they knew each other and had similar policy ideas.

Last year’s ‘Vote Empower!’ slate had a representative win in every category. Mora and Dal Porto were the only members of the ‘Take Action’ ticket this year.

The number of students voting increased from 7.4 percent in 2017 to 8.8 percent this year.

“That is an amazing number,” Kagianas said before announcing the winners.

RELATED: Presidential Ticket Goes Unchallenged in ASI Elections

The ASI Board of Directors will be almost completely new in the fall. Drajwanee Dickerson will return to be the director of Health and Human Services while Dal Porto is currently Mora’s assistant as vice president of academic affairs. Dal Porto also sits on the Student Fee Advisory Committee and the Sustainability Committee.

Mora and Dal Porto said that they want to increase student awareness in what ASI does and plan to visit every club and every classroom to explain what ASI has to offer in the coming year.

“I think that they are both running for a presidential ticket together to support one another fits naturally towards what they are currently doing, working as a team in their current roles,” Kagianas said.

The closest race of the night was between Christian Miguel and Madiha Chohan for director of social science & interdisciplinary studies. Every race was decided by at least 100 votes except for this one, which Miguel won by 24 votes.

“I’ve worked with Christian many times, and each time he has been enthusiastic and hardworking,” said current Director of Social Science and Interdisciplinary Studies Jay Passi. “I believe he will excel as the next director.”

Of the five candidates who ran unopposed this year, three of them had at least 10 percent of voters check the option ‘vote of no confidence.’ If that number had exceeded the amount of votes the unopposed candidate received, then that office would have been vacant.

Additional reporting by Corina Gutierrez  

The elected officers are:

Noel Mora – President

Rachael Dal Porto – Executive Vice President

Brandon Fischer – Vice President of Finance

Andrew Vonwal – Vice President of University Affairs

Jose Arias-Ruiz – VIce President of Academic Affairs

Katherine Bahena-Benitez – Director of Arts & Letters

Nora Ali – Director of Engineering & Computer Science

Drajwanee Dickerson – Director of Health & Human Resources

Christian Miguel – Director of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Studies

The positions of director of undeclared students, director of natural sciences and mathematics, director of business and director of education remain vacant.