In an election with record-breaking turnout, Noah Teixeira and Sebastian Atienza won the positions of President and Vice President of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, respectively. Both candidates won their races by less than 100 votes in one of the closest ASUN contests in years.
Teixeira beat opponent Alex Crupi 48 percent to 46 percent, a margin of only 78 votes. Atienza beat opponent Trenton Jackson by the same percentage margin, but with a total separation of 94 votes.
“It feels incredible for the work we put in and to see that the students still stood behind us,” Atienza said. “I am really happy to just continue this journey and our time in ASUN and I know we are going to serve the students as best as we can as your President and Vice President.”
Early in the campaign, Teixeira came under fire from students for tweets he sent in 2014 and 2015 that contained derogatory and insensitive language.
“The first thing I am going to do is to is create that Assistance Director of Diversity and Inclusion position, meet with every senator to go over the goals that they have, see what we can do in the next school year and start picking my executive board,” Teixeira said.
Voter participation broke the university’s all time record with 22.4 percent. The last time turnout was near that level was 2015 and 2011, which both saw 19 percent turnout. Last year’s participation rate was just 13 percent.
“[I am] unexplainably excited,” said Steven Mcneece, ASUN Elections chair. “I am really happy everyone went out and voted, it was something we were pushing all year, and it is just still kind of hard to believe until you see those numbers.”
Below is a complete list of the winners of the 2017 ASUN Elections.
Senators-elect for the College of Business: Justin Kuykendall, Zach Mah, Austin Thummel.
Senators-elect for CABNR: Connor Billman, Brennan Sullivan.
Senator-elect for the College of Education: Hannah Jackson.
Senator- elect for the College of Engineering: Narinder Mall, Michael Se.
Senator-elect for the Division of Health Science: Ryan Becker, Hayden Cook, Daniel Stopka.
Senator-elect for the College of Liberal Arts: Derk Bussman, Nicole Flangas, Anthony Martinez, Sarah Smith.
Senator-elect for the College of Science: Cynthis Lee, Angelo Lippi, Armen Paningbatan.
Senator-elect for Interdisciplinary Programs: Cammie Lee, Suraiya Sarwar
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