 "Photo: Chris Nomura")
 "Photo: Chris Nomura")
The Associated Students elections are over and the newly elected officers will start training next month.
Joseph Igbineweka won the president position in a run-off with Jeff Kell. Initially, Igbineweka received 30.78 percent of the vote while Kell received 28.13 percent.
Because neither candidate reached 50 percent of the vote, a run-off was done to tally the winner, said A.S. elections officer Tara Harmon.
In positions that have more than two candidates, voters are asked to vote first, second and third places, Harmon said. In the run-off ,the second and third votes are counted. That’s where Igbineweka won with 51.67 percent of the vote.
Another run-off took place between Mari DeLaCerda and Rami Siyam for the commissioner of multicultural affairs. DeLaCerda won with 55.98 percent of the vote.
Erin Van Peer beat out incumbent Julie Wright with 55.61 percent for executive vice president, Wright lost with 43.32 percent of the vote.
Desiree Tavares won commissioner of activity fee over Alexander Mena with 58.39 percent of the votes.
Uncontested candidates Shawn Wilson won the position of V.P. of business and finance and Erin Dacayanan won commissioner of environmental affairs.
Many others ran uncontested, including Brianna Ellis for V.P. of facilities and services, Amro Jayousi for director of legislative affairs, Tara Razi for director of university affairs and Ryan Giordano for commissioner of community affairs.
The local food advisory measure passed with 83.82 percent of the vote, but still has to be passed by a series of ad councils and by next year’s staff, Harmon said.
Voters were down from 4,717 last year to 4,370 this year. Revenue sharing funds were also down from $39,950 last year, to $38,250 this year.
The slump is attributed to the fact that there were so many candidates running unopposed, said Denise Crosswhite, A.S. programs coordinator.
“Less candidates mean fewer votes,” Crosswhite said.
But Chico State’s voter turnout is still higher than that at other universities, Crosswhite said.
“We are still well above average for the CSU System,” she said.
There have also been concerns among voters about the way candidates campaigned and the experience level of each candidate, according to comments on theorion.com.
Some candidates have even expressed concern with this year’s election process.
Some expressed unease about the use of chalk on city sidewalks, which spanned several blocks around campus and caused damage to the locations and took city money to clean up, according to a campus announcement by Rick Rees.
There were also some unconfirmed accusations by an anonymous source that some candidates were soliciting votes by buying drinks for voters at bars in return for their votes.
Another anonymous accusation was made that one candidate was persuading voters to allow him to log in to their accounts and vote for themselves.
A.S. also received a volume of grievances and complaints filed against some candidates, Harmon said. The names of those candidates were not disclosed and the complaints were mediated internally. None were referred to Student Judicial Affairs.
There is also some concern that the elected officers do not have enough experience, meaning it’s going to take more work over the summer for them to get acquainted with the organization, said Julie Wright, the departing executive vice president.
“They need to get familiar with what each of the committees do and how your voice as a student represents 17,000 other students,” Wright said.
The newly elected officers will start training May 1 and will receive guidance from the departing officers, Harmon said. They will also train and start working in their positions over the summer to get prepared for next year.
Delaine Moore can be reached at
dmoore@theorion.com
