Ellington

The highly emotional room last night had an audience half in tears waiting for the 2010 ASUW elections results.

With unprecedented voter participation — up 65 percent from last year, at 5,217 votes — the One Campus ticket won five out of eight candidate positions.

Madeleine McKenna was announced as the new ASUW President, taking a 58.9-percent majority, with more than 780 votes over Beto Soto.

“I have a lot of respect for the people who ran and it was an incredible election,” an overwhelmed McKenna said after hearing the results. “We had a record student-turnout participation in voting and some of the most active campaigning I’ve ever seen.”

Archita Taylor, chair of the Elections Administration Committee, said that campaigning hard paid off, but the results were hardly predictable.

“Any way that it could have went, nothing was predictable this year,” Taylor said. “I could never have predicted it.”

Eric Shellan won the vice presidency, with more than 320 votes over Dalia Amin. The closest races were between Yong Cho and Tunny Vann for director of Community Relations, with Cho winning by 64 votes, a margin of only 1.2 percent. Also close was the race for Director of Programming, with Sam Weinstein winning by just 62 votes, 1.3 percent more than Jocelyn McCurtain.

When asked what helped her win the position, an unsure Weinstein said it could have been anything.

“I’ve had a lot of experience and have been involved in a bunch of different areas around campus, so I have no idea what contributed to my win tonight,” Weinstein said.

Cho said that he was going to start working with First Year Programs immediately, but added, “that’s all I’m going to say right now.”

Ben Lealofi, who received the most votes for Director of Diversity Efforts, didn’t attend because of prior engagements with the Pacific Islander Student Commission. The new Director of Organizational Relations, Jonathan Yan, wasn’t present either and could not be reached for comment.

Director of Operations went to Sarah Round, and Director of Faculty, Administration, and Academic Affairs went to Jedediah Bradley, in the two uncontested positions this election.

Referendum one, the ballot measure determining the drafting and development of an ASUW University Agenda, passed with more than 4,290 votes.

The 2010 elections had a significant increase in candidate campaigning for the eight positions, with a record of five candidates running for presidency compared to only two last year. McKenna said that the large number of candidates and campaigning tactics helped contribute to more voter participation, resulting in an exciting election.

“All of the campaigns were really creative this year, and that really helped get students’ attention and bring them in,” McKenna said. “All of the creative campaigning tactics really helped, and I expect more of that in the future elections.”

The new ASUW Board of Directors were all anxious to start immediately, with some starting as soon as today.

“The first thing we do is start tomorrow,” Shellan said after his new position was announced last night. “Look out, Olympia, here we come!”

Reach reporter Katie Burke at news@dailyuw.com.