Celia Wright (left) and Leah Lacure are running for OSU USG president and vice president, respectively. Credit: Ritika Shah / Asst. photo editor

Celia Wright (left) and Leah Lacure were elected USG president and vice president, respectively.
Credit: Ritika Shah / Asst. photo editor

Celia Wright and Leah Lacure have been elected as the next Ohio State Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president.

Wright is a third-year in public health who is currently the USG senior internal affairs director. Lacure, a third-year in public affairs, is the deputy chief of staff for USG President Taylor Stepp and Vice President Josh Ahart.

It is the first time two women have been elected as USG president and vice president.

Wright and Lacure earned 40.4 percent of the vote with 3,953 votes cast. The runner up, Ahart and Jen Tripi, gathered 31.9 percent of votes with 3,127, according to the results.

There were six campaign teams running: Ahart and Tripi; Vytas Aukstuolis and Nick Macek; Ryan Hedrick and Nicole Spaetzel; Mohamad Mohamad and Sean Crowe; Andrew Warnecke and Logan Recker; and Wright and Lacure.

The voting breakdown in order of votes cast:

  • Mohamad and Crowe: 1,011 votes for 10.3 percent
  • Hedrick and Spaetzel: 570 votes for 5.8 percent
  • Aukstuolis and Macek: 405 votes for 4.1 percent
  • Warnecke and Recker: 110 votes for 1.1 percent

Ohio State men’s basketball player Amedeo Della Valle ran as a write-in candidate for USG president. He led the write-in candidates with 479 votes cast, finishing in fifth place overall.

Voting ran from Monday through Wednesday and had the third highest turnout in USG history with 9,942 votes cast, Chief Justice of the Judiciary Panel Tyler Byrum, a fourth-year in engineering physics, said Thursday.

That turnout was the highest since 1972, the year Ohio Gov. John Kasich ran for USG president and lost, Byrum said.

Mohamad, a third-year in chemical engineering and engineering physics, didn’t have much to say after the results were released.

“I’m just lost for words right now,” he said. “I’m proud of everyone that ran. It shows that USG is on its way up … I’m looking forward to next year. I want to congratulate Celia and Leah on a great job.”

Warnecke, a third-year in political science, did not agree with the results but was accepting of them.

“(I) wish Celia the best of luck, I mean, that’s really all I have to say. I don’t necessarily agree with the decision that people made but I accept (it),” he said. “I hope she can reach out to all students because I think we need that.”

Spaetzel spoke on behalf of the Hedrick-Spaetzel campaign after the results were released.

“Obviously we were surprised that we didn’t do better but we realized that we don’t have the monetary resources to compete with the larger campaigns,” she said, “but we congratulate Celia and Leah obviously and we hope they will consider mental health one of their top priorities just like the other campaigns.”

Aukstuolis, a third-year in public affairs, said he wasn’t expecting those results.

“I was confused,” he said. “I know we have an online tracker of our vote count or of the people who clicked through to the voting page … (There were) 1,200 clicks (on that link) as opposed to the 400 votes we received.”

He said, though, his team will just “move onto other things,” regardless of their confusion.

“Congratulations to Celia,” he said. “She’s definitely gonna move USG in a good direction next year.”

Attempts were made to reach all presidential candidates.