Fernandez, Sanchez elected president, vice president
The election was the first to use ranked-choice voting for the presidential tickets.
By NICHOLAS CORRAL
Bryan Fernandez and Brianna Sanchez will be the Undergraduate Student Government’s next president and vice president.
On Tuesday night, USG announced the results of its presidential, vice presidential and senatorial elections, which ran from Feb. 20 to Feb. 25.
Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.
USG chief justice Nivea Krishnan said that 4,306 undergraduate students voted in the election, 20.5% of around 21,000 total undergraduate students. Last year, 4,105 students voted in the USG elections.
Three tickets were up for election for president and vice president this year: Fernandez and Sanchez, Sam Stack and Christian Shaw, and Julianna Melendez and Klarissa Palacios. A fourth ticket, Dacity and Abitha Nunis, dropped out of the race just prior to the start of the voting period.
This was the first year that USG utilized ranked-choice voting for its presidential and vice presidential race. If no candidate received a majority of the votes, the candidate who received the least first-choice votes was removed from the race with the votes redistributed to their voters’ second-choice selections.
After the first round of voting, Stack and Shaw led with 1,564 first choice votes, Fernandez and Sanchez came in second with 1,504, and Melendez and Palacios were eliminated after only receiving 1,031 votes.
Of Melendez and Palacios’ votes, 596 went to Fernandez and Sanchez and 384 went to Stack and Shaw. This pushed Fernandez and Sanchez above the 50% threshold needed to secure their win.
The pair ran on a platform focused on student basic needs. They emphasized ensuring access to testing for sexually transmitted infections, enhancing recognized student organization funding application transparency and providing a directory of off-campus housing.
“We’re so excited to get working in reaching out to as many students as possible to ensure that they’re accessible to USG,” Fernandez said in an interview with the Daily Trojan after the meeting. “[We’re] making sure that we are getting our voice out to students in order to ensure that they are also able to participate in the student government to the best of our abilities and the best of their abilities.”
The pair will begin the transition process Wednesday to ensure continuity between the incumbent and upcoming administrations. This will include assembling their cabinet for the next year. During the Daily Trojan’s interview, they said they are looking to build a cabinet that is open- minded and embodies the values they set during their campaign.
“Passion is so big when it comes to USG,” Sanchez said. “USG is a huge organization with so much to do and so many timelines, so many bylaws. You need to come in with a passion of what you want to be.”
Eleven candidates had run for senate while 12 senate seats were available. Krishnan said the decision of whether to fill that seat is at the discretion of the incoming chief justice and executive cabinet.
All 11 senatorial candidates were elected, with the 12th seat to be filled next term by USG’s next chief justice and executive cabinet. (Henry Kofman / Daily Trojan).
Seva Raman, Mikaela Bautista, Jeremiah Boisrond, Dane Sprague, Heydy Vasquez, Patrick Nguyen, Akshay Manglani, Jackalyn Karamanougian, Diana Carpio, Brandon Tavakoli and Elija Barnes were elected senators for the next year.
USG implemented voter incentives this year for the first time in the form of shaved ice, baked goods from Porto’s Bakery & Cafe, and donuts. USG also extended voting through Sunday — it was originally scheduled to end on Friday. On Sunday, USG also announced that voters would be entered into a raffle for 10 $100 Amazon gift cards.
Krishnan said that prior to the weekend, only 3,000 students had voted and approximately 800 votes were submitted in the final hours of the election after USG sent a University-wide email promoting the raffle.
Krishnan pointed to the low number of senate candidates, low distinction between presidential tickets and low levels of candidate promotion by RSOs as components of the low voter turnout. She said this year the Judicial Council had focused on implementation of the ranked-choice system, but recommended more focus on improving voter turnout.
“The Judicial Council in future years should definitely reach out [to other universities]. It’s a really good idea to get other people’s thoughts on it,” Krishnan said after announcing the election results. “We did reach out to a couple of city governments to ask about the voting system that they used but other than that, I think they could definitely do more outreach.“
USG also passed two funding bills during their meeting. Vice president Michelle Lu introduced a bill to allocate $5,000 to fund another round of subsidized emergency contraceptives for medical supply vending machines.
Earlier in the meeting, Lu said that in 48 days of operation, the USC Village medical supply vending machine sold 319 emergency contraceptives. A second vending machine is being installed at the Royal Street Parking Structure. USG provides $10 to the cost of each unit of emergency contraception with USC Pharmacies providing another $5. Lu said she assumes the purchased contraceptives will last through the end of the semester.
USG also allocated $2,000 to fund a mural project at USC Village. While USG had intended to fund a permanent mural, they could not get cooperation from the University. Instead, USG is funding a mural on canvas which will be displayed in the window of Cafe Dulce for what they hope will be two weeks.
USG does not yet have a plan for the mural after its display but is considering installing it within the Village Community Room, Tommy’s Place, a RestSC location or in the USG office itself.
