UPDATED: Muckey and Hoffman win SGA election by 150 votes
Junior Erik Muckey and his sophomore running-mate Clay Hoffman won the Student Government Association presidential and vice presidential election by 150 votes.
According to senior Deven Scott of the SGA Election Steering Committee, a total of exactly 2,000 students turned out to vote for their 2013-14 student body representatives.
The breakdown of the votes:
•Muckey/Hoffman: 1075
•Junior Stephen Bollinger/ Sophomore Kara Fischbach: 925
Their opponents, Bollinger and Fischbach, congratulated Muckey and Hoffman on their victory and wished them the best in their new leadership positions.
“We’re looking forward to working with Erik and Clay in the year ahead,” Bollinger said. “We just want to say that we’re proud of the students for getting out to vote, and we want to thank our campaign staff, especially the Election Steering Committee, for all their hard work.”
Muckey and Hoffman said they felt relieved and overwhelmed at the election results.
“I’m very excited to see where we go from here,” Muckey said. “I’m excited to see where our Senate will go as well. We have some really great candidates, and it will be a really incredible year for the students at USD next year.”
Muckey, who initially became involved with SGA last fall, said he could not have imagined this outcome six months ago.
“It’s kind of funny to me how it popped into my head last November, and now I’m sitting here,” Muckey said. “It’s come together very quickly. It’s amazing how organized both campaigns were. We’ve both had some excellent campaign staffs, they’re the unsung heroes of this.”
Exiting SGA President Alissa VanMeeteren said she is eagerly anticipating seeing what Muckey and Hoffman will do in their new leadership positions.
“It’s exciting to see the groundwork that was laid by me, and that obviously I built off the groundwork of someone else, who built off the groundwork of someone else, and now two more people have the opportunity to build,” VanMeeteren said.
“It has been an incredible year, and I feel so humbled to have had this opportunity,” VanMeeteren said. “This is a great school. It’s definitely unique from, in my opinion, every other school. And it’s because of the people who go here. And so to have the opportunity to make their voice my voice is such a privilege and I feel very honored to have had that opportunity.”
Election night also yielded results for the upcoming year’s SGA senators.
Arts and Sciences: William Belch, Matthew Buhr, Michelle Corio, Sean McCann, Rachelle Norberg, Brent Olinger, Alexis Oskolkoff, Jessica Peterson, Lexy Schuman, Isaiah Wonnenberg and Samantha Zoss
School of Education: Michaela Duch and Emily VanLaecken
Fine Arts: Brooke Richmond
Graduate School: Ashley White
