Five students from the St. Petersburg campus were elected for SG’s university-wide Senate and nine seats were filled for St. Petersburg’s Campus Council.
Courtesy of Aubrey Carr, Sean Schrader and Josh Rampertab
By Molly Ryan
Last week, the announcement of Student Government’s (SG) general election results marks the beginning of a new chapter for the University of South Florida (USF).
From Feb. 28 through March 3, students casted their votes via online ballots for the next student body president and vice president and prospective amendments for SG’s Constitution, as well as governor, lieutenant governor, Campus Council representatives and senators for their respective campus.
On the morning of March 4, the preliminary election results were announced by SG’s Election Rules Committee (ERC).
Before finalizing the election results, the ERC must hear all grievances and elected students must accept their seats.
Presidential election results
Culminating votes across all three campuses under “OneUSF,” Nithin Palyam and Amy Pham were elected to serve as the next student body president and vice president, respectively.
Out of the 2,325 votes cast across all three campuses, the Palyam and Pham ticket received 62% of the vote with 162 of 260 votes from St. Petersburg, 64% of the vote with 1,295 of 2,011 votes from Tampa and 56% of the vote with 30 of 54 from Sarasota-Manatee.
The ticket campaigned and detailed their aspirations for the university with their “HERD” platform —an acronym for Health, Empowerment, Research and Development.
Under “HERD,” the ticket plans to advocate for the wellbeing of both the student body and the environment across all three campuses through initiatives centered around sustainability, mental health, accessibility and campus representation.
Palyam and Pham ran against fellow USF Tampa students Truong “Tony” Tran for president and Rughved Brahman for vice president, who campaigned under their “UNITE” platform — an acronym for Unification, Navigation, Integration, Transition and Exploration.
The Tran and Brahman ticket received 38% of the vote with 98 of 260 votes from St. Petersburg, 36% of the vote with 716 of 2,011 votes from Tampa, and 44% of the vote with 20 of 54 from Sarasota-Manatee.
Gubernatorial results
This year marks the third gubernatorial election under a consolidated SG.
Three tickets — Kenneth “Kenny” Bright and Zackery Morales, Nathan Poinsette and Kaiya Huggins and Sean Schrader and Joshua Rampertab — ran for the St. Petersburg campus’ next governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.
For the St. Petersburg campus, only 260 votes were cast for student-body presidential tickets, whereas 308 votes were cast for the gubernatorial tickets. According to Supervisor of Elections Savannah Carr, some St. Petersburg students were unsure if they were supposed to cast votes for both the presidential and gubernatorial tickets.
The preliminary results revealed that Poinsette and Huggins had the most votes at 132, receiving 43% of the vote. Followed by Schrader and Rampertab at 101 votes (33%) and Bright and Morales at 75 (24%).
However, since no ticket received the 51% required majority, a winning ticket could not be announced.
On March 8, St. Petersburg students will have the chance to settle the winning ticket for St. Petersburg’s governor and lieutenant governor between Poinsette and Huggins and Schrader and Rampertab, as they were the two tickets with the most votes. Voting will close at 11:59 p.m. the following day.
Alternatively, the seats for governor and lieutenant governor were filled at the Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses.
Both tickets ran uncontested, with Joseph Cipriano and Gabrielle Henry from Tampa and Evelyn De Oliveira and Madison Sosa from Sarasota-Manatee elected as each campus’s governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.
Senate and Campus Council results
During this general election, the Senate was officially reduced from the original 60 seats to 40, guaranteeing at least 3 seats per campus — the rest determined in proportion to campus population— per Constitutional Amendment XII, Article III, Section II, one of 24 amendments passed in this election. Only 39 of the 40 seats were filled.
This election allowed for 31 seats from Tampa, five from St. Petersburg and four from Sarasota-Manatee — however, Sarasota-Manatee only filled three of its four seats.
Out of nine that ran, the five elected senators from St. Petersburg are:
· Nathan Tout-Puissant
· Kenneth “Kenny” Bright
· Allison Richards
· Elizabeth Olson
· Courtney Dalton
Out of nine that ran, the 7 students elected to serve on the St. Petersburg Campus Council include:
· Kenneth “Kenny” Bright
· Nathan Tout-Puissant
· Allison Richards
· Zackery Morales
· Courtney Dalton
· Matthew Ibarra
· Lorguens “Jason” Saintelien
· Savannah Erickson
· Jalise Martinez
Where can I find an update to this story. I’m interested to know who won the run off election. Thanks!