Following two debates, a computer glitch and a delayed voting period, Nathan Alonzo was elected as the next Associated Student Government president on Friday.
Alonzo, the current legislative vice president, defeated Daniel “DC” Clark by an estimated 354 – 325 margin.
“We’re going to do our best to make sure that advocacy doesn’t stop,” he said. “When we [Alonzo, Rachel McKinley and Caitlin Mack] started talking about running, we knew we could bring continuity to ASG.”
For the President-elect, the election caps a school year where he climbed from the bottom of ASG to the top. He started the year as an appointed member of the Senate and was promoted to Legislative Vice President in the spring after the impeachment of Karlton Brown.
At the top of Alonzo’s to-do list: battling on-going budget cuts.
“For too long, the student body has sat idly by while the cuts have been handed down,” he said. “The FCC student body deserves a quality education and to have services available to make sure they get the best education for the money they are paying.”
But Alonzo is also keeping an eye on an issue that will carry over from this school year: Fresno City College’s accreditation warning.
“I want to make sure that the district’s accreditation suggestions are implemented,” Alonzo said. “During this year, there was obvious lack of communication from the district down to the college level.”
Joining him in August will be his two running mates: current Senators Rachel McKinley and Caitlin Mack.
“I’m very honored,” McKinley said. “There’s a lot to do.”
McKinley won an uncontested battle for legislative vice president, replacing Alonzo. Mack defeated incumbent Senator Michael Olague to become the next executive vice president, replacing incumbent Pedro Navarro-Cruz.
“I have a really good feeling that we are going to accomplish a lot of things this upcoming semester,” Mack said.
Grisanti Valencia won the position of president pro tempore in an uncontested campaign, she will replace current President Pro Tempore Veronica Farwell.
Senator Mike Wilson defeated former Senator Ben Andersen, who also served as interim legislative vice president in the wake of the Brown impeachment, to become student Trustee. Wilson will replace incumbent Christopher Coronado.
“I want to emphasize what’s really best for the students” Wilson said of his new role.
All eight of the candidates who filed to run for Senate were elected due to the small pool of candidates. The current makeup of the Senate allows for a maximum of 16 Senators. Thus, each of the eight running in this election only needed to receive one vote to be elected.
The new Senate is comprised of Rosalinda Barba, Jose Chavez, Mia Chennault, James Demaree, Hugo Garcia, Nathan Squire, Rene Villa and Josh Zamora. Villa is the only incumbent Senator who sought reelection.
Before any of these candidates were notified of their new positions, Student Activities director Sean Henderson had to notify them of bad news – the election, scheduled for the last week of April, was cancelled and rescheduled because of a glitch in the online voting system.
The web-based voting system sends an email to each of the students providing a link to the voting website and a username and password. During the first election period, the system only sent out an email to a selection of students and not the entire student body.
Under the ASG election code, all students must have access to a ballot during three consecutive days, causing the Student Activities office to delay the voting one week.
This year’s election was significantly different from one year ago. Student Activities director Sean Henderson estimated that the number of voters in 2011 was around 800. This year, however, 679 voters submitted an electronic ballot, equaling roughly 0.03 percent of the campus population.
“We have to increase awareness,” Alonzo said. “If we can get more students involved in the process, especially with the general election coming up, we can affect more change at every level.”
