In the runoff election on Feb. 25, Jozef Gherman and Juan Salazar were elected student body president and vice president.
Gherman’s ticket received 386 votes, accounting for 58.48 percent of the total votes, while Ziya Kardas and Kyle Uber received 274 votes at 41.52 percent. A total of 660 students voted.
In order to win, one ticket had to receive more than 50 percent of the votes.
Gherman told the Crow’s Nest that campaigning was intense for everybody involved. He said he and his team are already working toward fulfilling campaign promises, including the improvement of veteran services at USF St. Petersburg. Gherman said he has a detailed plan mapped out for his first day in office.
“I know we can do more to assist those who serve our country,” he said. “I want to find out what needs to be done immediately to get their services working in the most efficient way.”
Gherman said that moving forward, there must be trust between the student body and its elected officials. He intends to treat this new position like a full-time job.
“Seeing as we campaigned on experience and vision, we’d like to put both to work right away by assembling an administration with the best fit people in this university who will help us hit the ground running, and realize the collective vision of the students,” said Gherman.
USFSP experienced a significant drop in initial voter turnout from last year’s elections, when roughly 1100 students voted the first time around, followed by about 450 in the runoff. This year, there were only 666 votes counted in the first round, but runoff votes were up from last year at about 660.
Current student body president Cody Boyer has some ideas as to why this may have happened.
Four presidential tickets as opposed to five in the race lessens the outreach and general impact of the elections, he said.
The 500 on-campus students and an additional 150 or so off-campus students actively participating in campus life and activities make up 8-10 percent of the total student body. Candidates this year may have focused on more active students, Boyer said, reducing the number of students reached in the election.
Reflecting on his campaign last year, Boyer said he may have skewed voter turnout with his concentration on non-traditional students, commuters and underrepresented interest groups.
“I set out to do one thing: notify students had the right to vote. And boy did they come out,” he said. “What I didn’t realize is that it increased the denominator of voters so much that it made the 8-10 percent of active students on campus, including clubs and orgs, a minority segment of our voters.
“This just goes to show, in addition to our on-campus students, active club leaders and student workers, our commuter students and non-traditional students play a big part at our school also. We just need to communicate with them more.”
