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Thomas wins SA presidency; Onwenu, Nghiem win races

2/22/16 3:51pm

Griffin Thomas will serve as the next president of the Student Association after winning the SA election with 53 percent of the vote over Jones College junior Joan Liu. Justin Onwenu won 54 percent of the vote to serve as the next SA external vice president, defeating Hannah Todd, who received 27 percent of the vote, and Brianna Singh, who received 20 percent.

Jodie Nghiem won a race for Rice Program Council president against Iman Khan 62 percent to 38 percent. The other subsidiary organization elections were uncontested.



The student body approved Rally Club and Rice Catalyst as subsidiary blanket tax organizations to receive student funding, with each receiving approximately 70 percent of votes in favor. Rice Video Productions narrowly kept its priority access to student funding after 65 percent of the student body voted to remove its subsidiary blanket tax status; out of 1198 votes, RVP was 19 away from the two-thirds threshold that would remove its funding access.

After uncontested elections, Duncan College freshman Maurice Frediere will serve as the next SA Treasurer, while Hanszen College sophomore Komal Luthra will be the SA Internal Vice President.

Turnout was much greater than last year, with 1,532 students voting in the race for SA president and nearly 1,500 voting in the EVP race. No race received more than 1000 votes total last year except the presidential race, which Sid Richardson College senior Jazz Silva won with 566 out of 1,088 votes cast. Previously, in 2014, the general election had to be rerun due to ineligible voters casting ballots; the 1636 votes cast in the rerun were the most since at least the turn of the century, according to Ravi Sheth (Martel ‘15), who served as the SA president before Silva.

After subsidiary organization races which were uncontested other than RPC, Yasna Haghdoost will be the next editor-in-chief of the Thresher, Kalian Shi will be Rice Student Volunteer Program chair, Marcela Interiano will be University Court chair, Kira Chen and Matthew Cruz will be Campanile editors-in-chief, Katie Jensen will be senior class representative to the Honor Council and Lee Pelton will be KTRU station manager.

SA President

Griffin Thomas: 809 (52.8%)
Joan Liu: 723 (47.2%)

RPC President

Jodie Nghiem: 853 (61.6%) 
Iman Khan: 532 (38.4%) 

U-Court Chair

Marcela Interiano: 1333

SA External Vice President

Brianna Singh: 291 (19.6%)
Hannah Todd: 395 (26.7%)
Justin Onwenu: 796 (53.7%)

Thresher Editor-in-Chief

Yasna Haghdoost: 1332

Honor Council Senior Rep

Katie Jensen: 1264 

SA Internal Vice President

Komal Luthra: 1336

Campanile

Matthew Cruz & Kira Chen
(1269 votes)

RVP Program Manager

Kevin Li: 1247

SA Secretary

Sonal Pai: 1351

KTRU

Lee Pelton: 1278 

RVP Station Manager

Minoti Kale: 1251

SA Treasurer

Maurice Frediere: 1312

RSVP

Kalian Shi: 1321 


Referendum 2: Rally Club (pass)

Yes, to approve Rally Club as a subsidiary organization: 861 (70.2%)

No, to not approve Rally Club as a subsidiary organization: 366 (29.8%)


Referendum 3: Rice Catalyst (pass)

Yes, to approve Rice Catalyst as a subsidiary organization: 871 (71.2%)

No, to not approve Rice Catalyst as a subsidiary organization: 353 (28.8%)


Referendum 4: Rice Video Productions (two-thirds required to pass)

Yes, to remove Rice Video Productions from its subsidiary status: 780 (65.1%)

No, to keep Rice Video Productions as a subsidiary organization: 418 (34.9%)



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NEWS 3/26/24 11:39pm
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