By Christie S. Peterson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Following an unexpected delay for a recount, Ben Driggs was announced UA student body president-elect last night following his victory over Ethan Orr by a slim 124-vote margin.
Surrounded by a crush of supporters, Driggs said he attributed his success to "the wonderful work of all my campaign staff Ä they're the best group of people I could ever ask for. I'm so thankful to everyone that helped me out; they were tremendous."
Driggs said, "I've worked both with the new vice presidents Steinberg and Major; I think we'll have a great working relationship. We've all gotten along really well in the past and we all know how important it is for the executive officers to work together. We're going to do everything we can to make it a productive ASUA. The real work starts now."
Elected vice presidents were Andrea Major for Programs and Services and Andy Steinberg for Clubs and Organizations.
"The turnout reflects that the students at the University of Arizona really care and I look forward to serving all of the clubs and organizations," Steinberg said.
This year 3,624 ballots were cast, more than twice the number in last year's election.
Elections Commissioner Mike Clifton-Harter said, "Our ultimate evaluation of how well the election went is how informed the students were and how involved they were in the election. Obviously, we had a great number of candidates and we had a great student turnout."
Clifton-Harter also said he thought the election was not unduly affected by the fact that presidential candidate Ethan Orr was forced to take down all of his posters by noon Tuesday for having broken several campaign codes.
In an interview earlier in the day, Orr said his campaign was adversely affected by the decision, because he had lost time removing the posters. He also said that other candidates violated codes as well, and he did not think they had been adequately investigated.
Orr had no comment following the announcement of results.
In the race for the undergraduate senate, those elected were Mindy McCollum, Jonathan Bierner, Gahl Leddel, Andrew Higgins, Sergio Jasso, Charlie Hong, Jay Won Bartlett and Gilbert Davidson, in order of number of votes received.
The division between the eighth senator-elect and his nearest com- mid
petitor was only six votes, forcing the recount.
A student referendum which created a Student Fees Advisory Board passed with only two opposing votes.
All unopposed Graduate and Professional Student Council candidates won their elections, with several write-ins among them.
In the three contested races, Alexander B. Ching and Anna C. Young won for the College of Law, Melanie Ayers and Francisco J. Bido won for the Faculty of Science, and Rex Hansen and Lisa Slattery Rashotte won for the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
All candidates will be sworn into office on May 1.