The Joint Elections Committee announced sophomores Nicole Capp and Brand Kroeger Student Association president and executive vice president Thursday night in the Marvin Center.
Capp beat junior Marc Abanto by 8 percentage points, garnering 1,199 votes – or 54 percent – compared to Abanto’s 1,010 votes. Kroeger received 59 percent of the vote with 1,202 votes compared to 841 votes for his opponent junior Nick D’Addario.
Capp will be the first female president in nine years and the youngest president to serve in four years.
“We made history tonight,” said Capp, shortly after the JEC announced the results Thursday night. “Never before has a candidate had so many obstacles to overcome.”
Capp came in second with 817 votes to Abanto during last week’s general election. Juniors David “Tito” Wilkinson, Casey Pond and Michael Ray Huerta came in third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the general election.
“We were able to win because students realized that there was a time for change,” said Capp, who ran as an independent.
Kroeger’s defeat over D’Addario makes him the youngest executive vice president in two years.
“It feels absolutely fantastic to have real students voices heard for progress,” Kroeger said. “The work starts today.”
Kroeger garnered 950 votes in the general election last week, coming in ahead of D’Addario, sophomore Andrew Cooper, junior Chris Rotella and junior Elliot Bell-Krasner.
Abanto and D’Addario left quickly after the JEC announced the results and Student Union campaign manager junior Kenny Gold said neither candidate was available for comment. Gold credited Capp’s success in the election to her unique focus.
“I think both (Marc and Nicole) ran unbelievable campaigns,” Gold said. “Nicole focused heavily on grads and they voted again.”
Capp garnered 369 votes to Abanto’s 40 paper ballot votes. The paper ballot is the method used by many graduate students who cast votes in the Law School and Medical School. The Marvin Center and Duqu?s Hall, voting locations that many undergraduate students use, feature electronic ballots.
Gold said he is still happy with the success of the slate as a whole.
“I do not regret any candidate running on our slate, every person on our campaign was great,” he said Thursday night. “If I could change one thing I would focus more on graduate votes.”
The Student Union slate almost swept the senate, gaining all of the undergraduate senate seats in this year’s election. The only undergraduate seat not won outright was a School of Business seat which the slate picked up when the previous winner of the seat, junior Matt Cohen, was disqualified from the election by the JEC for overspending on campaign finances, JEC records show.
Third-place candidate for the SoB Senate seat, freshman Jake Lansburgh from the Student Union, will replace Cohen as SoB senator-elect. Kroeger said that Cohen will be appealing the JEC’s decision to the SA Student Court.
The newly elected SA representatives from the past two weeks will assume their seats at the end of April during a swearing-in ceremony.
