Taking in more than half of the total votes for this year’s Minnesota Student Association elections, newly elected MSA president Matt Clark and running mate Rachel Boeke attributed their considerable win to simply “talking to people.”
Clark and Boeke received 1,210 out of a total 2,996 votes cast. They nearly doubled second-place candidates Laura Taken and Aaron Street’s votes.
Taken and Street, who received 609 votes and ran as co-presidents, aimed to personalize the student government.
The All Campus Elections Commission reported online voting exceeded expectations with 2,942 votes on their Web site; there were only 54 votes given at the three polling stations on campus.
However, the tallied vote fell short of last year’s highest voter turnout of 3,066 votes.
Clark, the current vice president of MSA, ran on a platform of continuing MSA efforts of improving students’ lives.
“I don’t think he’ll change much (of MSA),” said current MSA president Ben Bowman. “He’ll continue to have good relations with others and continue the work he did this year. It’s a great transition.”
MSA received criticism from presidential candidates during the campaign. They accused the organization of being ineffective and inattentive to students’ needs.
Although presidential candidates Jared Christiansen and Mike Franklin came in third place with 438 votes, their message of disbanding MSA rang clear.
Clark and Boeke said their administration will differ from this year’s MSA with the number of people they will bring into the student group.
“We’ll bring to the process all sorts of people from different backgrounds,” said Clark. “They will be involved in our decision-making process.”
Brent Grocholski and Gwen Steel received 190 votes, Troy Tatting and Todd Olin received 172 votes, and Andy Rorvig and Craig Post received 155 votes.
The surge of online votes indicated to elections commissioners that students found Web site polling stations more accessible. After the first day of voting, elections commission adviser Yee Leng Hang said the commission wanted to encourage students to use the Internet for future elections.

Raisa Beltran covers student government and student life and welcomes comments [email protected].