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Public Policy junior Daniel Greene and LSA sophomore Izzy Baer will serve as the 2018-19 University of Michigan Central Student Government president and vice president, respectively, according to election results released late Friday evening. Representatives running on their ticket, MVision, also won a plurality of seats in the assembly.
Greene and Baer defeated the second-place MomentUM party executive candidates, Engineering junior A.J. Ashman and LSA junior Charlie Bingham, by a margin of 1,512 votes— more than 77 percent more votes.
Business junior Arathi Sabada and LSA sophomore Marianne Drysdale of the True Blue party came in third with 1,464 votes. Reggie Bee, a corgi known around the University campus, finished fourth with 1,403 votes, eMpower — headed by Public Health senior Lloyd Lyons and LSA sophomore Frank Guzman — tallied 771 votes and LSA junior Sujay Shetty and Law student Matthew Williams of aMplify came in sixth. Student turnout measured at 23.9 percent, an increase from last year’s 17.9 percent.
Friday’s results are still unofficial, as the body’s election commission has yet to certify results.
Reggie Bee, the corgi, placed fourth. However, he is ineligible to hold office and was disqualified. Controversy grew on social media meme pages about whether votes were wasted on Reggie, with the popular dog’s Facebook page even urging students to cast ballots for eligible candidates.
The MVision platform focused on increasing resources for Counseling and Psychological Services and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. Greene and Baer expressed that these goals, and the entirety of their platform, was rooted in direct experience. In the same vein, the two hope to bring attention and support to those experiencing oppression from their “invisible identities.” During the campaign, the ticket also advocated for monthly town halls and open dialogues in response to immediate “high impact” events on campus.
Prior to running for executive office, Greene and Baer both served in representative roles in CSG, with Baer acting as the assembly’s vice speaker in the winter semester.
Greene said he thought there were many valuable ideas in other party’s platforms which he would work to include in his own agenda as president.
“I think that what I’m doing in this coming week is bridging relationships with the other candidates and parties. I want to make sure that their voices aren’t lost,” Greene said. “They bring a lot of institutional knowledge and opportunity and phenomenal platform points that, although they weren’t a part of necessarily the MVision platform, they definitely speak to student concerns on our campus, and regardless of what platform I ran on, those parties and those candidates brought ideas to the table that should not be dismissed based upon the election victory.”