SGA elections close, official results this week

Austin Walker
Staff Writer

Voting closed last Saturday for the offices of SGA president and  vice president. Suraj Telhan and MaryBeth DeMarco both ran unopposed.

The official results will be made available sometime this week, but because these candidates faced no opposition there’s no chance that we’ll see any other students taking those executive positions. The polling results will reveal, however, who will be covering the senate seats.

The main difference between this year’s election and those before was the requirement that the president and vice president run on a dual platform. According to current SGA president Brandon Day, the requirement was to ensure the candidates would be cohesive and collaborate on many of the same duties.

Day also said the SGA hopes that the change will aid in the relationship between the two positions and allow them to work toward similar goals.

“The two candidates are fantastic,” Day said. “I know them personally just because they’ve served in SGA before, and I know that they’ve done great things for the organizations and they’ll continue to.”

Telhan, an information systems major and rising junior, has been involved with SGA since fall 2013.

“Suraj, who ran for president, he served on the judiciary, and he formerly served in the legislative committee so he has a very holistic understanding of how the SGA can help to benefit the entire university,” Day said.

DeMarco is an exercise systems major and has been involved with SGA since her freshman year.

“She’s the current external-affairs co-chair, and she served in legislative before, this is her second year so she’ll be in her third, and same thing,” Day said. “She understands SGA’s internal structure very well.”

There were 10 senate candidates, including Troy Fields, Rebecca Vareed, WIlliam Carino, Krystal Pham, Sravya Uppalapati, Summer Morris, Kanisha Fahie, Shay Miles, Benjamin Gallik, and Shanece Green. The winners of the senate election will be announce alongside the those of the Executive.

After the official results of the voting are made public, Day will be involved in the vetting process for the incoming executives, and the incoming Senate will be trained within their branch. Until then, however, the SGA will continue to operate under normal settings.