Feb. 16 - A year after the most prolonged campus contest in recent memory, student elections ended without a hitch.
Seth Dearmin was elected the University's next student body president Tuesday, winning 51.6 percent of the votes in a close runoff against Seke Ballard.
Dearmin received 2,602 of the 5,046 votes cast Tuesday after garnering 40 percent of the vote in the general election last week.
After hearing the results, Dearmin spent several minutes rejoicing with his supporters and taking phone calls from well-wishers.
Ballard, who picked up an additional 542 votes since the general election - when he received 27 percent of the vote - said he believed that he did all he could to close the original 887-vote gap.
"I think it's just that the student body identified with one candidate more than another," he said.
Voter activity went down since the general election, which brought out a record 7,046 students to vote for student body president. "It's tough to get everyone to get out and vote again," Dearmin said.
In the race for senior class president and vice president, Bobby Whisnant Jr. and Jenny Peddycord narrowly took the crown Tuesday, walking away from this year's campus election season with 51.6 percent of the junior class vote.
Of the 1,584 total ballots cast in the race, Whisnant and Peddycord garnered 818, while opponents Madison Perry and Whit Walker grabbed 766, closing with 48.4 percent of the votes.
