Campus United Reclaims Executive Branch Stronghold, Maintains Senate Majority
By Evelyn Spence, Hannah Jackson and Simren Verma
April 25, 2019 at 11:41 pm
Last year, the Isla Vista Party upset Campus United’s stronghold on the Associated Students executive branch, securing three of the seats opposed to Campus United’s one – claiming victory with the executive seats for the first time in the party’s history.
This year, Campus United flipped the script, reclaiming the majority in the executive branch with A.S. President-elect Alison Sir, Internal Vice President-elect Alli Adam and External Vice President for Statewide Affairs-elect Daevionne Beasley.
The Isla Vista Party clinched one executive seat within Associated Students (A.S.) for the 2019-2020 school year, with Christian Ornelas winning the External Vice President for Local Affairs position.
The final executive seat was won by an independent candidate: Student Advocate General-elect Andrew Nguyen.
Campus United also maintained its slim majority in the A.S. Senate, taking 12 of the 23 seats on the table. The Isla Vista Party won 10 seats, while the last seat went to engineering candidate Diana Reyes Carrillo, who ran independently.
There will be no College of Creative Studies (CCS) senator and no fifth on-campus senator in the 70th Senate due to a shortage of candidates.
The full list of senator-elects can be viewed here.
A notable victory from tonight’s election was that of College of Letters & Science Senator-elect Justice Dumlao. He previously lost twice in A.S. elections – once as an External Vice President for Local Affairs candidate in 2016-2017 and again in the 2017-2018 presidential race.
Over 32.34% of the undergraduate student body voted in this year’s election, compared to 39.7% of last year. According to the A.S. Elections Board, 6,980 students undergraduate students voted in this year’s election, as opposed to the 8,233 who voted in the 2017-2018 election.
This is the first year since 2015 that voter turnout has dropped.
Sir, a third-year political science major, is UCSB’s first female Asian-American president.
“I am just so grateful to actually represent the community, my community, the Asian American community,” Sir said.
“I am so blessed that I have so much support… The night went really well and I am really proud of everyone that was able to win and feel the experience of running. I am very proud of Zion running too, we are both women of color and I am very proud… for what we both did. I am excited to do a lot of good work and [make] tangible change.”
The race between External Vice President for Local Affairs (EVPLA) candidates Christian Ornelas and Matthew Griffin came the closest. With 3,012 votes, Ornelas narrowly defeated Griffin, who earned 2,915, by a margin of 97 votes – a mere 1.6%.
According to A.S. Legal Code, “A recount shall be given whenever the difference between the Candidates is two percent (2%) or less of the votes cast for the office; or whenever evidence of an erroneous count is shown and called to the attention of the Elections Board Chairperson or the Senate within one (1) week (seven (7) days) after the vote has been announced.”
Elections Board did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding a potential recount.
“I know that I have really big shoes to fill, so I’m excited to start working with Jeike, start having our transition meetings, just to really make sure that I can live up to all the work that she’s done because she’s done a lot for this campus,” Ornelas said.
Internal Vice President-elect Alli Adam ran unopposed after her would-be opponent, Yash Nagpal, dropped out of the race during Week 1 of Spring Quarter, citing health concerns.
“Associated Students has a bright future for 2019-2020, and that’s all I have to say,” Adam, a third-year political science major, said.
Andrew Nguyen was also unopposed in his race for Student Advocate General. Nguyen ran for an off-campus Senate seat with Campus United during the 2017-2018 school year and served on the 69th Senate.
Campus United External Vice President for Statewide Affairs-elect Daevionne Beasley defeated Isla Vista Party candidate Alexandra Leal Silva by a margin of 513 votes. Beasley, a second-year sociology major, emphasized that he wants to continue working with Leal Silva during his EVPSA term.
“I’m most excited to reach out to [Leal Silva] and see exactly what ideas she has from working in the EVPSA office these last three years … I know that she was so instrumental in keeping the office going when there was no EVPSA, I really need her input and insight,” Beasley said.
“We reached out to each other before and we said that no matter the results, we’d work with each other and I hope that continues and that the sentiment was real, and I can’t wait to see where both of our ideas will take us forward.”
All fee reaffirmations passed, and the sole new fee on the ballot – a fee for the Student Initiated Recruitment and Retention Committee (SIRRC) – also passed with 64.93% of the vote.
As with most A.S. elections, the days leading up to the final results were filled with contentious jabs between the two parties, but it was the day of elections when A.S. Presidential candidate Zion Solomon faced heavy backlash on social media, notably on a thread posted under the subreddit r/UCSantaBarbara.
Solomon’s platform point of proposing a lock-in fee to help transgender students with gender reassignment surgery was attacked on Facebook, Instagram and a Reddit forum, with the Reddit thread receiving more than 100 comments.
Campus United posted a statement on its Facebook page following the widespread sharing of the Reddit thread, condemning both the thread and tagging the Isla Vista Party in its post.
“We as a party do not take responsibility for this Reddit account as the individuals who created it were not part of our party nor associated it, and we condemn any form of transphobia. We acknowledge that this Reddit post is hurtful and we disavow that type of thinking.”
The statement further called upon the Isla Vista Party to draft a combined statement that would address “the importance of acknowledging how transphobia and homophobia are hurtful” and stated that all newly-elected candidates should have a town hall about this matter.
Further pictures from elections night can be viewed here.
Jorge Mercado, Katherine Swartz, Ashley Rusch, Arturo Martinez, Amira Garewal and Max Abrams contributed reporting.
Correction [April 26, 2:24 p.m.]: Dumlao ran for the EVPLA position during the 2016-2017 election, not for an off-campus senatorial position.
“I am just so grateful to actually represent the community, my community, the Asian American community,” Sir said. Too bad she’s homophobic and transphobic. All she is representing is the problematic Asian Americans nothing more.
Stay salty :)
I’d like to see some evidence about your claims before I actually believe this. Calling someone these things is no joke, and can really ruin lives if it’s based on no tangible evidence whatsoever.
Wow make her issues (of which there is no evidence of your claims)the issues of All Asian Americans and show you racism and lack of intelligent rational thought
“Excited to represent my community” what have you even done for the Asian community? NOTHING you just decided to use identity politics to win an election
Zion used the hell out of identity politics too. LOL keep crying Alison is your president whether you like it or not.
The difference is Zion actually put in actual WORK for their communities and had every right to mention that.
Keep crying LOL
Zion the identity candidate. Using identity politics as an empty platform
Alison Sir will do a great job.
How about you represent the ucsb students and not just the asians, wtf is this? Imagine someone saying I am so glad to represent the white community.
Well, Asian people didn’t own slaves. How about that?
That’s actually false. Asians did own slaves
Oh I’m sorry I didn’t know Asians were such a big part of triangular trade.
They owned slaves in Asian countries. Guess that doesn’t count, huh?
Everybody owned slaves. Even slaves in Africa owned slaves. No racial group can claim to be untainted by slavery. But we should try to fight the hate and focus on the future.
Where is the post about the Reddit thread that CU posted??? Can’t find it anywhere
there is mild mis pronouning and the majority of the posts are not anti Trans but instead do not support a student fee to pay for trans surgeries.
Future candidates: try NOT to get endorsed by the NEXUS! IT IS CURSED. This year and last year everyone the Nexus endorsed LOST. They are CURSED. They endorsed Mayela and then retracted it and then SHE WON but got disqualified Bc homegirl wasn’t a student. As you can see the NEXUS IS CURSED. DO NOT GET ENDORSED BY THEM IF YOU WANT A CHANCE OF WINNING IN AN AS ELECTION!!!
Absolutely correct.
^This really saddens me. Nexus endorsements are produced by interviewing and researching the experience and goals of each candidate running. Those who they choose to endorse are those who have more experience, more relevant platforms, and are considered a better choice after a process of investigation. The process used by the Nexus to pick candidates is the same process that every single student should be using. Instead, the past two elections are based off of meaningless name recognition and strategic social media use. The fact that candidates who were chosen as more qualified lost exemplifies how broken the AS election… Read more »
^This is so true. The Nexus genuinely does the utmost to interview candidates and provide accurate and unbiased information to students about who they believe will do the best job. Yes, there has been a “Nexus Curse” the last two years, which is devastating because those who were endorsed would have done much better jobs not only last year but this year too. But this should not discouraged future candidates from getting endorsements. Students, yes you reading this, need to do their research before voting. These articles are posted weeks before the elections and take two minutes to read. Democracy… Read more »
And how exactly does the nexus know better than everyone else on who’s the most qualified and fit to be our student leaders? Endorsements are still objective at the end of the day and even though they’re based on interviews and research doesn’t mean that they are the only right decision. Students should base their decisions off platforms, qualifications, candidates pasts, and their characters and come to their own decision. The Nexus doesn’t know what’s better or worse than anyone else on campus.
Let’s be honest. The voter turnout for these is usually in the 30s percentage-wise (in a good year) and most of the votes are “Oh yeah I think I heard of that guy. I saw his name on a flyer while taking a poop in the dorms once.” Rarely does any student know who these people actually are. Unless you are friends with the candidates or a freshman whose RA told them to remember to vote, my guess is you didn’t vote. Voter apathy is so high, AS had a position vacant all year after two recounts because they couldn’t… Read more »
None of what you said is true or ZION would not have been endorsed after her racist and racially charged comments which she never walked back. She claims to be progressive but holds ignorant racist and foolish ideas
Zion was endorsed because she was so immensely more qualified than Alison. The nexus even said they endorsed her in light of previous character flaws because Alison has done NOTHING and her ideas are vague, generalized, and out of touch with the needs of students. Here’s the bottom line: AS endorsements are based on objective research and sadly our apathetic student body instead chooses to vote in the less qualified candidate in EVERY executive slot.
Justice also lost in the EVPLA race. Congrats on winning this time!
So happy Zion did not win the election, we deserve better and got better. Goodluck Allison!
I second that.
Both candidates had the capacity to do a great job. Zion clearly had more experience and clearer goals, but Alison did win, and both should be respected equally.
In your faulty opinion that maybe true but in reality the better person won hands down zion lost many people’s respect over the type of race they ran and things they said
If we are electing these execs on the basis of being nice, ok cool vote for Alison, but I would like someone who is making 9k to at least have some solid background and experience. Campus United is 90 percent kids in Greek life who use AS as a giant popularity contest and resume pad who I have personally witnessed say and post equally controversial things as Zion. It’s sad to me that we elect people based off of who can come out with a YouTube video.
Everyone who doesn’t like Alison. She is your president elect now. No matter how much you complain on Twitter she is your president. Suck it up buttercup.
I would like to see AS make a resolution condemning the transphobic and homophobic shit that members of Campus United have said. How can some of those same senators feel proud of walking into sente without facing consequences!!! This school continues to silence the voices of black and brown students, and further marginalizes qtpocs!
Why do we even need an AS? They only seem to care about themselves and their own demographic category. Can’t we just take the AS budget money and return it to the students in the form of a check? Even just half of it?