ASCWU election results are in

Jasmin+Washington+is+the+ASCWU+President-elect.%0AShe+won+the+election+by+63+votes.

Jasmin Washington is the ASCWU President-elect. She won the election by 63 votes.

Nick Tucker, Senior News Reporter

Correction 5/2/19: As of the time that this article is released, the results have been finalized and are no longer preliminary.

The results are in for the 2019-20 ASCWU elections. Jasmin Washington has won the seat of president after making it past the primaries and beating the runner-up Brendan Dolleman. Alejandro Alcantar won as a write-in candidate for executive VP. Ashley Klippert will be VP for clubs and organizations. Nicholas Mejia will be the VP for academic affairs. Jessica Hernandez will be VP for equity and community affairs. Mickael Candelaria will be VP for student life and facilities and Zackary Turner won as VP for legislative affairs.

The position of ASCWU President was won by 63 votes, a four percent margin, with Washington winning 811 votes and Dolleman winning 748. Upon learning of her victory, Washington called Dolleman and offered him a position on her team, an offer which he accepted.

“She hasn’t specified [my role] yet, but we’ll be talking over the next weeks,” Dolleman said. “What’s important is that I am willing to help and that she was willing to reach out, I really respect that.”

Washington said the first task she will be undertaking is to fulfill one of her campaign promises by getting menstrual products distributed for free to students on campus. According to Washington, she is also looking at all buildings on campus to find which buildings have gender-neutral bathrooms and which don’t.

“I’m super excited to get the ball rolling, we have the most diverse board we’ve had ever,” Washington said. “Hopefully everyone thinks about hiring their opponents because I think they all have that drive that we need. It would be good to get everyone at the table because you rarely get students like that, so why not use them?”

This election saw a large amount of write-in candidates running for office with various degrees of success, at least seven were shown in the voting results. Alejandro Alcantar originally ran for the presidential seat until losing to Washington and Dolleman in the primary elections earlier in April. Alcantar said that he had friends and supporters recommend he run for the role of executive VP as a write-in candidate, which he won uncontested.

However, some write-in candidates didn’t see as much success. Political science major and ROTC cadet Will Stryker ran for VP of academic affairs against Nicholas Mejia. According to Stryker, he had been trying to decide if he would have enough time next year to give his potential position its necessary attention. A friend encouraged him to do so but by the time his decision was made, it was too late for him to gather the required 100 signatures to become an official candidate.

“I said ‘oh, it’s Friday of finals week, good luck finding 100 people to harass into signing this piece of paper,’” Stryker said. “As a write-in candidate you have to actually know people, they won’t just tick the box, it’s more of a grassroots campaign.”

In getting to know student voters, Stryker filled a notebook full of things that students brought up as important issues when talking to him. He said he intends on giving the notebook to Mejia to make use of in his new position.