Hannah Davis and Nick Tunison were announced as the 2012-2013 ASUI president and vice president Thursday at the Idaho Commons rotunda.
Philip Vukelich | Argonaut Hannah Davis, elected 2012 to 2013 ASUI president, and Samantha Perez, current ASUI president, hug after the announcement of the winning presidential ticket Thursday in the Idaho Commons rotunda. Davis and her running mate, Nick Tunison, will serve as ASUI president and vice president in the coming academic year.
“I can’t wrap my head around it right now, I’m just excited that we got to this point — that we got elected,” Davis said. “It’s the biggest relief ever — I don’t know if I want to cry or if I want to scream, but it’s good. It’s over.”
A total of 2,070 votes were cast in the election, a 93 percent increase in voter turnout from last spring’s election and a 53 percent increase from the fall election. Davis and Tunison were elected with 52 percent of the vote. Also elected Thursday were eight
new ASUI senators.
Allie Fuller, current ASUI senator, was reelected with 32.4 percent of the vote. Halle Smith, Hannah Sandoval, Michael Cullen, Sadie Grossbaum, Jonathan Wakeman, Shelby Donald and Steven Cleppe were also elected.
The election was not districted based on living groups because the requirements for a districted election were not met. According to ASUI rules and regulations, “if there are not at least as many candidates as specified district seats plus three (3) in each district, all districting requirements are void for that election and that entire election is decided purely by popular vote.”
With three presidential tickets, 16 senate candidates, weeks of campaigning and a last-minute extension at the polls, current ASUI President Samantha Perez was glad to see the elections come to a close.
“It feels good to have the election done and have the next people in line,” Perez said. “I’m excited. I’ve been preparing for them to be elected for the last few weeks, getting the office in order and everything that they’ll need.”
Davis and Tunison will officially take office at 7 p.m. May 2.
“I’m very excited, they’re a great ticket and they have lots of great strengths that they’ll bring to ASUI, I’m really excited to see what they do in their term,” Perez said. “The past three years ASUI has been moving forward and so I’m really excited to see them take it the next level yet again. They’re both really great leaders and it’s been an honor to work with both of them in ASUI.”
Davis and Tunison’s platform focused on transparency, recognition of the university at the state level and making ASUI more accessible to the entire student body.
“Complete transparency — so not only with the finances, but we want to make sure that everyone understands what’s going on with ASUI all the time — what’s going on with Vandal Entertainment, athletics, and also I want to reach out to the legislature and make sure that they know the university is a prominent character in the state,” Davis said.
Tunision said his goals are to make sure the senate represents all students and he would like to open up standing committees within ASUI to all students who would like to apply.
“Personally, I’m going to be working with Juan to make sure that I know exactly what I can do to hit the ground running in the fall,” Tunison said.
Davis and Tunison said their campaign strategy was to utilize their friends and be as educated as possible about ASUI.
“We just tried reaching out to everyone and making sure that we knew any questions that might come up, and we were as educated as we possibly could be so that we could answer anybody’s questions,” Tunison said.
Elections were originally scheduled to end Wednesday at 5 p.m., but were extended due to the inability of some eligible students to vote.
“The registrar gets all the vandal ID numbers of students for us, and in the past they have only gotten the student ID numbers of only degree seeking,
undergraduate, full-time students,” Perez said.
Eligibility is based on whether a student pays the undergraduate student activity fee. Full-time students who pay the activity fee and later drop to part-time status are still eligible to vote, but did not appear on the list provided by the registrar.
Additionally, international students who are full-time but considered non-degree seeking were omitted from the original list. After students contacted ASUI, 131 students were added to the eligible voters list and the polls were extended to 4 p.m. Thursday.
“The extension of the voting polls threw me over the edge,” Davis said. “After I collected myself and Nick collected himself, we and our campaign manager Max Cowan — who helped so much — we got together and started calling all of our friends, making sure that everyone had voted that we knew.”
Davis said they also returned to the residence halls to make sure students knew who they were and what they stood for.
“We took it and ran with it to make sure that we could use every aspect of that situation,” Davis said.
Davis said she and Tunison will start hiring ASUI board members and continue to work with ASUI Director
of Technology Alec Akin to enhance the ASUI website now that they’ve been elected.
“We’re trying to get us up to speed and take ASUI into the 21st century,” Davis said. “Make the website more accessible to students — easier to use. We want to make sure that there’s a breakdown of the ASUI budget that everyone can see all the time, and that if they need to talk to someone they can get right to the person they need to talk to.”
Davis said she plans to continue the audit of the dedicated student fee started this year by Perez.
“I think we’re going into an awesome budget right now. Asking for a zero percent increase in student fees — that’s the best you can ask for for students,” Davis said.
Perez said in the remaining three weeks of her presidency she plans to finish up her current projects, such as “Vandal Community Hour,” approval of the ASUI budget by the ASUI Senate, finishing up the remodel and helping Davis transition into the presidency.
“I really hope in the future they continue to build on the good work that ASUI has done the past three years,” Perez said. “I think that we’ve really elevated the name of ASUI and really gotten it out there and let students know what ASUI does. I’d really like to see them continue to build on that, and not only on campus but on the community level and on the state level and on a national level.”
Perez said she was pleased with the increase in voter turnout and is excited about Davis and Tunison, and the elected senate candidates.
“I think they’re going to do a really good job and I know that Hannah and Nick are going to be really great leaders for ASUI,” Perez said.
Davis said she is relieved campaigning is over and is excited to transition into her role as president.
“Thank you to everyone who voted. Even if they didn’t vote for us I’m just so happy to see how the voting turnout went and obviously we’re just so happy with how it turned out,” Davis said.
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected]