Debbie & Blake ticket wins USG presidential election


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USG announced that Senators Debbie Lee and Blake Ackerman won the USG presidential election by a margin of approximately 100 votes in Tuesday’s senate meeting. Lee will serve as USG president and Ackerman as vice president for the 2018-19 academic year.

Graphic by Emily Smith and Terry Nguyen | Daily Trojan

The Debbie & Blake ticket received 49.19 percent of the votes cast last week, while the Mai & Brianna ticket received 46.7 percent. The rest of the votes, totaling 190, were abstentions. There were 4,627 votes cast this year.

The senate election results were also shared during the meeting. The incoming USG Senators are Will Sherman, Gabriel Savage, Shayan Kohanteb, Max Geschwind, Meagan Lane, Amy Chong, Manda Bwerevu, Matthew Crane, Jillian Halperin, Michaela Murphy, Jacquelyne Tan and Diviya Gupta.

The results are unofficial, though, until all financial paperwork for the candidates is submitted and reviewed. Furthermore, the director of campus activities must finalize the results once the review is complete.

Lee, when asked how current President and Vice President Austin Dunn and Morgan Monahan can aid her and Blake in their transition, noted the initiatives the current administration will bequeath to them.

“I think Austin and Morgan have completed a lot of initiatives, but I also know that they have a whole board of initiatives on the way,” Lee said. “So I think not only will the transition be us learning how to take on the position but also a transition of projects that they’ve worked on.”

Ackerman emphasized that he and Lee want to work with and hear from all students, including those who voted against them.

“I think, most importantly, Debbie and I said during this election that we want to listen first,”  he said. “We want to hear from students, and students don’t have to agree with us. We want to listen to everyone. We want to hear their voices.”

Lee hopes to foster more diversity within USG so that it can be more representative of the student body.

“I think that Austin and Morgan have done a great job in a lot of areas,” she said. “But, I think something new that we can bring to the table is cultivating an organization that actually holds itself accountable to diversity.”