The students of Ohio State have spoken.
The votes in this year’s Undergraduate Student Government election have been tabulated, and the new president is Mike Goodman.
The results of the election were announced at 10 p.m. Monday in the basement of the Ohio Union.
Goodman, along with running-mate Frank Sasso, received 2,431 out of 7,706 votes, said Sarah Topy, chief of staff for USG.
“We had the second-highest voter turnout in the BigTen this year,” Topy said. “The only other school with more voters was Northwestern, who had a voter turn-out of 60 percent.”
Goodman and Sasso won the election by 1,271 votes over the runner-up team of Kirk Strohman and Chris Hempfling. The team of Dave Hazard and Sean Taylor came in third, Chris Peters and Nicky Smolter were fourth, Chris Bolte and Matt Straka were fifth and Bart Connolly and Nicole Kidston were sixth. There were also 277 write-in votes.
Both the president and vice president expressed their gratitude to the student body for electing them into office.
“I want to thank the students of Ohio State for giving me this opportunity. I appreciate being elected into office, and I look forward to representing the students of OSU,” Goodman said.
“Thank you to everyone who had faith in us. We are so grateful for the chance to make OSU a better university. We are not going to let you down. We are going to do everything that we promised we would. This is going to be a great year,” Sasso said.
As the new USG president, Goodman said his main concern is the students’ quality of life.
“We want to improve the everyday life of the students so that their time here is quick and enjoyable,” Goodman said.
The student activity fee, improving the honors program, and increasing penalties for students involved in riots are among some of Goodman’s other concerns.
“We have talked to so many students over the last few weeks about what they would like to see happen at OSU. It’s incredibly gratifying to know that we have a year to institute all the suggestions that the students have given us,” Sasso said.
Goodman and Sasso will be sworn into office during an inauguration ceremony on May 25.
Once in office, Goodman’s first priority is to develop a cabinet.
“My main concern is the Cabinet. It is important to have a strong Cabinet that I can depend on and that can effectively run USG,” said Goodman. “I feel that this is the best way to begin my presidency.”
“The more effective team we have, the more effective USG will be. We need a strong foundation to build on. If we have that, then we will be much more productive,” Sasso said.
In addition to the presidential election, students elected 60 representatives from areas of campus into the USG senate and passed a revised version of the USG constitution.
