SGA officials announce election results

Students listen for the results as SGA Parliamentarian Zacharia Dornisch (left) announces the winners of the election.

 Slippery Rock University's Student Government Association (SGA) Parliamentarian Zacharia Dornisch announced the results for the 2012-2013 SGA election at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the quad.

Of the three parties running in the election, being T.O.G.A. Party, Party Rock and Mario Party, the most victorious turned out to be the T.O.G.A. Party, who clinched various senator seats, as well as four of five Executive Board positions - President, David Wolfe; Vice President of Internal Affairs, Kelly Moore; Vice President of Student Affairs, James Henry; and Vice President of Financial Affairs, Benjamin Motyl. The fifth Executive Board position, being the Vice President of Campus Outreach, went to Mario Party candidate Christian McChesney.

Voter turnout for this year's election had improved by almost 50 percent from last year's election, which had a turnout of only eight percent of the student population. The poor turnout of last year's election was attributed to the fact that only one party, The People's Party, ran and did not face opposition.

SRU students gather in a crowd around the gazebo in the quad to listen to the SGA election results Tuesday afternoon.

While there were three parties in total for this year's election, T.O.G.A. Party and Party Rock were the main front-runners of the election, winning favor from students with different platforms and various promises.

T.O.G.A. Party had campaigned on the promise to bring the authority of SGA back to the students and away from faculty, but the party made other promises, such as restructuring SGA's budgeting system, readjusting the Happy Bus schedule, improving lighting on and near campus and reduced costs around campus.

Led by SGA presidential candidate Alex Hiller, Party Rock proved to be T.O.G.A. Party's biggest challenger. Party Rock had campaigned with several different promises, but it was mainly due to their controversial platform that they got attention - to make SRU a wet campus.

Though the pledge had gained attention from students, Party Rock's platform only raised more questions and skeptical attitudes instead of creating support from the student community.