No surprises in SA election

By Zoey Duncan

After four-and-a-half hours of waiting for the ballots to be counted, an excited and slightly nervous group of Students’ Association hopefuls finally got their answer.

“We had a lot of ballots, and that’s a good thing,” said Shauna Hunter, the chief returning officer, to a modest number of students during a break between karaoke tunes in the Liberty Lounge on Feb. 10.

Hunter announced that each candidate, all of whom were running uncontested, had won his or her coveted position, and her words were greeted with cheers from a table of candidates and their supporters.

Robert Jones was ratified as SAMRU president with 731 “Yes” votes, but was absent because he was in Edmonton representing the Alberta Students’ Executive Council.

Anna Piltingsrud, who will be the next VP academic, received 725 “Yes” votes.

“I’m really excited to get started,” Piltingsrud said, citing the co-curricular record and textbook loan program as her top priorities.

Meghan Melnyk will replace Jones as VP external and received 685 “Yes” votes.

“We are going to be amazing, I really feel that way,” an impassioned Melnyk said after the results.

Eily Sweeney received 755 “Yes” votes and will retain her position as VP student life.

Sweeney said that there was a lot of effort put towards increasing student engagement in the election this year, including establishing the council engagement committee. This year, over 950 students cast ballots (exact numbers were not available at the time of publication), compared to around 700 in the winter 2009 election.