Experience paid off for sophomore Ben Taylor. The current vice chair of the USM Student Senate won the recent SGA Presidential race carrying a commanding 44 percent of the vote.
Taylor’s term as president will officially begin at the end of the semester, at the same time that next year’s 12 elected senators are officially seated so that they can approve the budgeted allocation of the Student Activity Fee.
The other two presidential hopefuls, Adam Royer and Ben Skillings, garnered 27 and 23 percent of the vote, respectively. The remaining 5 percent went to write-in candidates.
However, these numbers might not be representative of the more than 10,000 students at USM: only 345 voted in the presidential race.
This is down significantly from closer to 600 in last year’s election, which was the first election to be done online rather than at tables across campus.
This year, several students involved in student government cite the timing of elections as the reason for the low turn-out. In past years, candidates were allowed a full week of campaigning after announcing their candidacy.
This year, due to deadline extensions, campaign week went by without much notice.
Next week, we’ll look more at what happened, and feature profile of your next student body president.
If you’re interested in learning more about student government, stop by their office in the Woodbury campus center or attend the next Student Senate meeting, this Friday from 2:30-4:30 in 403 Woodbury Campus Center.