Martha Smith and Emma Johnston were elected as the next ASUI president and vice president respectively Wednesday night.
Three senators were also elected for next semester including Julissa McDowell, Anya Zuercher and Kaylee McCulloch.
Smith expressed admiration for the candidates she ran against, Peyton Loffer and Justin Alder.
“I want to express, I have so much respect for everyone who ran and having a contested election made this worthwhile, and I have an immense amount of respect for everybody who ran,” Smith said after the result was announced.
“I have thought a lot about what the University of Idaho has meant to me these last five weeks, and I can’t put into words, more so, that it’s just life changing. And being ASUI president, I think I can advocate for people who didn’t have the cards dealt right for them for college,” Smith said.
“Thank you to the student body for showing out and voting. I think we had a really great student turn out and it means a lot that people care in the first place to vote, and it means a lot that people heard our message and it resonated with them,” Smith said.
The show out for this semester’s election increased from last year. There were 1,619 total votes with 26% of the votes coming from residence halls, 40% coming from Greek life affiliated students, 31% from off-campus students and 3% other.
Additionally, 25% of the votes were from freshmen, 28% sophomores, 25% juniors and 22% seniors.
ASUI still has three senator positions to fill. Elections for these positions will take place at the beginning of next semester.
Georgia Swanson can be reached at [email protected]u