The final tally is in, and Travis Henderson is UMB’s new undergraduate student president. Henderson, with his Vice President Dan McDowell, beat Gamaliel Madelon and Tariana Little with 67.6 percent of the student vote.

“The turn out was much better than I expected given the difficulties and the new system,” confessed Albert Chen, who reluctantly became the Chair of the Elections Committee when no one else would volunteer earlier this month.

502 students voted this year, half as many as voted last year. But this year, all of the voting was done online or via email. There were no paper ballots, as there was much less tabling manpower during the week of elections.

Even so, voter turnout for this election was the second highest in the past several years, according to Shelby Harris, the Director of Student Activities.

“We had a good committed group of students that turned lemonade out of lemons, and kept it a viable and fair election,” said Harris. “I am very pleased with the results.”

During the USG debate two weeks ago, Madelon and Little said that no matter what happens during this election, they’ll continue to work with the student government.

There are still several senate seats to fill, even though the student body voted to reduce the senate from 30 members to 20.

“We can’t even fill a 30 person as it stands,” McDowell, one of the people that crafted the question said. “The idea was to just have enough dedicated people to do the work that needs to get done.”

There was a bit of controversy during the election, though nowhere near as much as there was last year, and neither of the presidential candidates were docked points.

Henderson put up four large posters around campus near the beginning of his campaign. Though the posters were properly stamped, his opponents questioned the number and placement.

The USG judicial branch decided that four large signs exceeded campaign limits, and asked Henderson to take down three of the signs, which he promptly did.

DaWon Roy, a newly appointed USG justice, decided not to penalize the candidates for displaying too many large posters.

“It’s more of a clarification issue that should have been addressed prior to their campaigning,” he said.

Bianca Baldassarre, who ended up winning the Student Trustee position by a slim margin, was docked nine percent of her votes because she was nine days late turning in receipts from her campaign. 

“If you’re going to be someone that’s in a public office like that, you should be able to hand in the necessary documentation in a timely manner,” Roy added.

This was Roy’s first decision as a justice. He was appointed yesterday by USG President Neil MacInnes-Barker.

“One of our justices was unavailable, and we needed three to function,” Chief Justice Jeff Poreda said. “He was going to be appointed during the next big session of the USG anyway.”

Judges operate independently of the Senate, and do their best to be impartial.

“We have no clue what the election results will be, and how our decision will effect the results,” said Poreda.