Students can expect another week of SGA executive candidates campaigning for their votes, as the results of this week’s election yielded runoffs for most of the positions.
Two of the presidential candidates, Hayden Hatch and Tyler Frevert, earned spots in the runoff, garnering 42 percent and 35 percent of the vote respectively.
The two external vice presidential candidates who earned spots in the runoff are Peter Brady with 37 percent of the vote and Stetson Whetstone with 35 percent.
Taylor Shackelford and BaLeigh Waldrop will be campaigning another week to be the next internal vice president. Shackelford was 10 percentage points away from reaching 50 percent of the vote necessary for victory, while Waldrop kept herself in the race by garnering 35 percent of the vote.
Pradeep Attaluri won the graduate vice presidential election with 57 percent of the vote.
The runoff wil be next Thursday and Friday, March 6 and 7.
Frevert, Brady, Shackelford and Attaluri make up the executive candidates of the “Experience Where It Counts” bloc, while Hatch, Waldrop and Whetstone represent the executive candidates of the “One Tech” bloc.
Students also turned down a provision asking if they thought the Rec Center factilities should be provided extra funding through a $25 per student fee for turf fields and other improvements. Only 53 percent of student voters agreed — to be approved, ballot provisions require the support of two-thirds of those voting.
The SGA’s proposed lobbying efforts for a two-day fall break barely passed the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
Executive candidate blocs “One Tech,” “Experience Where It Counts” and “Connect Tech” were in the running for the positions of president, external vice president, internal vice president and graduate vice president, along with senators for each college that the blocs endorsed.
This election cycle, the SGA put in extra efforts to increase the student-body turnout. Luke Cotton, student body president, said approximately 15 percent of students voted in the February 2013 SGA elections. Today, Cotton said he was pleased to announce the SGA’s efforts paid off with more than 20 percent of the student body casting votes in this year’s election. This is the apparently the highest turnout in the history of the SGA, according to SGA Director Mike Gunn.
Cotton also noted that all results are unofficial until senate confirmation. Regarding the vote on the lobbying effort for a fall break, Cotton said, “I don’t think we’ve ever dealt with something so close.”
Because many of the executive candidates are also senator-at-large candidates, Cotton said those positions will be determined after the runoff. Some senators have been announced, but results are subject to change after the runoff because many of the executive candidates in the runoff are also senatorial candidates.
All official voting statistics were provided by to The Hub@TTU by Mike Gunn, director of SGA, through Texas Tech’s Information Technology System.
Evan Dixon, Alicia Keene and Trey Parker also contributed to this report.
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