The Campus Student Election Commission released unofficial results from the Illinois Student Council election on Thursday. Voting took place on Feb. 27 and 29 of this year.
Rudy LaFave and Hunter Farnham received the most votes for student body president and vice president, tallying 32.7% of all first-choice picks.
On the ballot for president and vice president, 5,031 students cast their votes — nearly twice as many that voted for the position last year, according to the CSEC. LaFave and Farnham came away with 1,643 of the votes.
In the vote for student trustee, Ariana Mizan won with 2,260 votes, or 35.6% of all votes.
The unofficial results additionally included counts and winners for ISC senatorial positions, student senators from each college at the University and positions on the Student Organization Resource Fee board.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
According to the CSEC, several one-vote ties were recorded in the senatorial elections, requiring lots to be cast to break the ties. The CSEC’s student election code resolves these ties by casting or drawing lots — essentially a random selection.
Students also voted on several nonbinding referenda, which included four that were sponsored by the Illinois Student Council. Issues included renewals and increases of fees for various programs, the fate of the Ice Arena and increasing access to reproductive resources on campus.
Fee-related referenda, including those for the Student Organization Resource Fee and the Study Abroad and Travel Scholarship Fund fee, passed by a simple majority. The Media Fee renewal passed, but the increase in fees did not.
Students overwhelmingly opted to maintain the Ice Arena for a $13 increase in fees, voting against the demolition and repurposing of the facility into a multi-use court. Eighty-eight percent of the vote was yes, while only 9.2% of the students voted no. The future of the arena has recently been uncertain due to considerable wear on the building.
In addition, voters strongly supported a referendum calling for on-campus health care centers to provide students with access to contraceptive pills, with 74.7% of all voters affirming the proposal.
These results are unofficial. According to the CSEC, official results will be released by 5 p.m. on March 22.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the organization “Illinois Student Government” was used. Its current name is “Illinois Student Council” and is now properly reflected in the headline and body of the article.
