Chris Cheng, Nehi Ogbevoen win presidency

Chris Cheng and Nehi Ogbevoen were declared the winners of the Undergraduate Student Government presidential election Tuesday, according to preliminary results.

Cheng, a junior and USG’s current director of outreach, and Ogbevoen, also a junior, earned 2,100 votes — 45.3 percent of the total votes. They were followed by junior Dylan Dann, a current Greek senator, and junior Addison McCaleb, who earned 1,429 votes; junior Jonathan Munoz-Proulx and sophomore Ryan Walsh, who had 615 votes; and junior Andrew Matson, USG’s director of academic affairs, and sophomore Juan Orjuela, currently a residential senator, who earned 407 votes.

Cheng said he was “ecstatic” that his ticket won.

“We worked hard for every vote we got,” Cheng said. “We were out there for two weeks shaking people’s hands in the dining halls and on Trousdale. We didn’t really have any expectations; we just worked our hardest.”

Ogbevoen, who rushed to the Senate meeting from a basketball game to hear the results, was equally excited.

“It hasn’t hit me yet, it’s surreal,” Ogbevoen said. “In about 10 minutes, I’ll be screaming like a girl.”

Cheng and Ogbevoen credit their success to the amount of work they put into their campaign.

Munoz-Proulx said he wasn’t surprised by the results, adding that he is “very thrilled with the candidates that have been elected.”

Other candidates expressed similar views on the election.

“I think they’re going to lead USG with a lot of strength,” Matson said. “They’re really going to be able to connect with the students.”

USG Vice President Ashlie Chan said she was happy with this year’s election season.

“I’m really glad that the [voter] numbers have increased from last year,” Chan said. “I think the numbers reflect what the students want.”

Scott Hummel, co-director of elections and recruitment, said he was “impressed” by all the campaigns.

“They were all just really impressive students,” Hummel said. “They were all well-spoken, involved and interested in making USG better for USC students … These candidates bring to light how students should have the biggest say.”

Cheng and Ogbevoen are already making plans for the weeks before they take office. Among these tasks include building an “awesome and amazing” cabinet and talking to the administration, according to Cheng.

“We just want to start meeting with the administrators as soon as possible,” Cheng said. “We really want to fulfill all the promises that we’ve made. We’ve already met with the administrators beforehand, which was a huge help, and so we already established a good relationship with the administrators which I think is really important. So now we have to meet with them again and say, ‘Hey, we won so lets try to get this done for next year.’”

Ogbevoen also hopes to talk to the current USG president and vice president to gain insight from their experiences.

“I’ve done a lot of research in the past two months about the current administration” Ogbevoen said. “I really just want to dive in and talk to Ashlie Chan about being vice president and Holden Slusher and see what struggles they faced last year so that we can keep moving forward.”

During the campaign season, complaints were filed against Cheng and Ogbevoen for using the USG listserv to e-mail students. The elections commission ruled it a minor offense and ordered the ticket to remove 10 campaign signs from Trousdale Parkway. The other candidates brought the issue to the judicial board, which ruled that Cheng and Ogbevoen could not campaign until 3 p.m. on the third day of voting. No further action will be taken.

Co-director of Elections and Recruitment Emiko Suzuki said the whole election season went well and that it was a fair election.

“The atmosphere when the results were announced, everyone was still in good spirits and were all shaking everyone’s hands, and I think that shows that this was a good election and that nothing went terribly wrong and that nobody won by dirty means,” Suzuki said.

The official results of the presidential and senatorial races will be announced next Tuesday after the elected candidates have been determined to be in good standing and have completed their budget proposal.