Micah Kamrass and Brad Pyle are Ohio State’s new Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president.

With 7,583 OSU undergraduate votes cast, Micah Kamrass and Brad Pyle came out on top, beating president and vice president hopefuls Jordan Davis and Ashley Sinram by 1,032 votes.

Kamrass and Pyle took 55 percent of the votes, and Davis and Sinram took 41 percent. The remaining 4 percent were write-in votes.

This year’s election represents a 22 percent increase from last year’s total voting number of 6,216, and it is the highest total since 2003’s election with 7,706 undergraduate votes.

This election was about all the students who voted and went out to have their voices heard, and that is something OSU should celebrate, Kamrass said.

Bryan Rybak, the USG Election Governance Board director e-mailed the results to the candidates at 5 p.m. Sunday.

The Davis and Sinram team gathered at Woody’s Tavern in the Ohio Union to read the campaign results, while Kamrass and Pyle met at their fraternity house, Alpha Epsilon Pi, with a group of 20 friends and family.

After reading the results, an emotional silence fell over the Davis and Sinram team.

“I still haven’t reacted to it,” Sinram said. “When we found it wasn’t us, my initial reaction was to check all the senators to make sure the people that were also on our slate had gotten elected.”

Davis did not want to comment on the results.

When Kamrass opened the e-mail and announced the news, the
celebratory screams began instantly, but just to be sure, Kamrass double-checked the e-mail.

Kamrass said the news of the win hasn’t hit him just yet, but Pyle said it’s an unreal feeling to be the new vice president of USG.

There are rules and guidelines that govern the entire campaign about how much the teams can spend, where they can campaign and how.

Both teams had the opportunity to file a case against the other team until Friday at 11:59 p.m., when voting ended, if they felt any rules were violated. For the second year in a row, no cases were filed, making the results of the campaign permanent.

“We’ve had two years in a row of upstanding campaigns with people who are not willing to go down under the mud simply for gain,” said Ben Anthony, the 2009-2010 USG president.

Davis and Sinram did not file any claims because they wanted the election to be more about campaigning and promoting themselves instead of bringing down the other team.

After Kamrass and Pyle are inaugurated in early May, they said they want to put together their executive team — a team of people from all areas of the university that will help them represent students. They also want to immediately put their platforms into action.

“We said we would be out in the Oval once a week and we will be there the first week we get inaugurated,” Kamrass said.

In addition to making sure USG is more visible and readily available to students, Kamrass and Pyle want to revamp the Buckeye Alerts and Crime Alerts systems to improve student safety, make changes to the Stop Franklin County Stop Teenage Opportunity To Purchase program, and expand Thompson Library hours.

Despite the loss, Sinram said she still supports everything USG stands for and will continue to support Kamrass and Pyle.

“Obviously we didn’t want Micah and Brad to win, but now that they’re in charge, I know they’re going to do good things,” she said. “If not, I’ll be forcing them to from the sidelines.”

Now that elections are over, Sinram plans to finish out her term as USG chief of staff but doesn’t know what the future holds for her.

“What was USG’s loss was the rest of the campus’s gain because I know these candidates [Davis and Sinram] are going to go on to do wonderful things,” said John Tannous, the “Keepin’ It Fresh”
campaign manager and a second-year in political science and
economics.

Whether they won or lost, Kamrass and Pyle had a get-together planned at their fraternity house for the campaign team and other supporters. Because of the win, hugs, high-fives and cheering filled the room.

“Dallas Lauderdale said it best, that Micah and Brad are going to do great things for this university,” said Brett Chessin, the “We Are All Buckeyes” campaign manager and a third-year in political science and international studies.

Voting for the USG Newark Campus Emissary ballot is extended until today at noon because candidate Dan Miller was left off the ballot for 10 hours. Results for this position will be available at 1 p.m. today.