Joey Sciuto, a sophomore social work major and current speaker of senate, won the presidential election for the Student Government Association (SGA) for the 2020-21 academic year.
Sciuto won the election with 64.78% of student votes while competitor Nicholas Condon, a junior political science major, received 34.68% of votes for president. The remaining 0.84% of votes were write-ins, according to data from Lauren Moran, director of student engagement and leadership and an advisor for SGA.
This was the first election since 2017 that there were multiple candidates for president on the ballot. During the election season for the 2017-18 E-board, Rachel Lawler secured the presidency for her SRYOU ticket.
The remaining five positions were uncontested in this year’s election. The other executive board members for the upcoming year will be Nathaniel Desing (Vice President of Finance), Leif Lindgren (Vice President of Student and Academic Affairs), Mia Graziani (Vice President of Internal Affairs), Amanda Reilly (Vice President of Outreach) and Alexis Gish (Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion). Lindgren, Graziani, Reilly and Gish ran under the “#ROCKSolidChoice ticket with Sciuto.
For more information about all of the candidates, click here.
Graziani and Sciuto are currently the only returning E-board members. The remaining two executive board positions, Speaker of Senate and Parliamentarian, will be decided at a later date.
In The Rocket’s coverage of these elections, Condon did not specify if he would remain engaged with SGA if he did not win the presidency.
“Yes, I absolutely intend to remain engaged with the community at SRU,” Condon said while answering questions from the elections town hall. “I am not 100% sure how, going forward, I will be involved in the community and whether or not SGA will be a part of that. However, I have a passion for advocating for students on campus, and I honestly believe that, regardless of what the outcome of this election is, I will still want to represent in some form.”
In these executive board elections, 358 SRU students voted. Last year, 739 students voted in the elections for the 2019-20 executive board and senate.
This year’s turnout is the lowest since 2011; prior to this election, the smallest turnout occurred during the spring 2018 election with 534 votes.
SGA announced on social media Monday about an alleged violation of the election rules. The election commission has not responded to additional requests for comment on this alleged violation as of Wednesday or if it will impact the results of this election.
SGA previously announced that senator elections will be delayed until the fall semester due to the ongoing pandemic.
