Geragos, Prasad win USG presidential race

Students elected Mikey Geragos and Vinnie Prasad to serve as Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president, respectively, in the 2012-2013 school year.

All smiles · Vinnie Prasad (left) and Mikey Geragos (right) were unofficially named vice president and president of the Undergraduate Student Government. Both Geragos and Prasad have served as USG Senator pro tempore. - Katelynn Whitaker | Daily Trojan

Geragos, USG director of university affairs, and Prasad, USG Senator pro tempore, received 2,376 votes, winning by a nearly seven-point margin. The presidential ticket of Jared Ginsburg, USG director of campus affairs, and Samantha Coxe, a Greek senator, placed second with 1,992 votes. The ticket of Theo Offei and Julia Riley garnered 960 votes.

Geragos said he plans to work with current USG President Monish Tyagi and USG Vice President Logan Lachman to ensure a smooth transition between administrations. Elected USG officers will be sworn in early April.

“I’m going to take tonight off,” Geragos said. “But after that I’m going to sit down with Monish and start going over all of the transition things we need to hit. I feel like it’s really important I get up to speed on everything so we can hit the ground running.”

Geragos said one priority for his administration is improving on-campus dining.

“That’s been a big thing,” Geragos said. “I got a lot of responses for that [during the campaign] from students who wanted it to get fixed, so I’ll definitely be focusing on that.”

Tyagi said Geragos and Prasad’s USG experience will allow them to work effectively in their new positions.

“They both have a lot of experience in USG,” Tyagi said. “That’s going to bode really well for them going into next year.”

Tyagi said the winners should channel their energy from the campaign into their new positions in USG.

“It’s a lot of work ahead of them,” Tyagi said. “It might feel like this is the end, but it is just the beginning of a very memorable year. But I know if they approach this next year with the same amount of dedication as they approached this campaign, they will keep moving USC forward.”

USG co-directors of elections and recruitment Elise Fabbro and Kelly Hann announced the results of the presidential and senatorial races during a USG Senate meeting in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. More than 75 students attended the meeting in anticipation of the results.

Students cast 5,546 ballots in the election, nearly a 200-ballot drop from last year’s contest, in which 5,741 students participated. Hahn attributed this decrease to the intermittent rain last week.

“Rain definitely influenced it,” Hahn said. “But we are happy with the turnouts.”

USG also announced the election of 12 Senate positions. No incumbents ran for re-election.

Sophomores Ryan Park, Matthew Arkfeld and Alexander Cascante were elected to serve as Greek senators.

Park said, as a senator, he plans to focus on creating an online calendar of Greek activities and on repairing the sidewalks on The Row.

The six winners of the residential senator election were junior Josh DeMilta, sophomore Maheen Sahoo and freshmen Jasmine McAllister, Emma Katz, Sona Shah and Sarah Loh.

“Our plans are to improve campus sustainability, the dining halls as well as housing facilities,” said Shah, who ran on a slate with Loh.

Juniors Adam Prohoroff, Vicken Antounian and Ani Tatintsyan were elected to serve as commuter senators.

Follow USG beat writer Daniel Rothberg on Twitter. | For more coverage on the 2012 USG elections, click here.