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SBP election winners announced

By Zerina Bajramovic

Staff Writer

Student Body President-elect Jonathan Dean and Vice President-elect Jason Rubinstein will assume office on May 1, 2016. Lincoln Crutchfield was voted the University System Student Board (USSB) representative. The USSB representative’s term will begin on July 1, 2016.

Dean is a third-year UNH student senator and current chairperson of the External Affairs Committee. He is a junior in the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics (Paul College), majoring in economics with a minor in health management.

Rubinstein is a second-year resident assistant. Also a junior, Rubinstein is majoring in philosophy.

Dean is also a peer advisor in Paul College, vice president of the UNH Student Alumni Network, and captain for the UNH Mock Trial Team.

Rubinstein is a graduate of the 8th Annual UNH Leadership Camp and has worked at the Department of Housing for three and a half years as a member of the moving crew.

“Running in this election has been a great experience for both of us. The support we received from UNH students has been extremely humbling and we are very happy to be able to serve our fellow UNH students for the coming year,” Dean said.

The Student Senate Election Committee announced the results of the election on March 10 at 1:00 p.m. and results were approved shortly thereafter.

Despite having one fewer day of voting than in 2015, the voter turnout for Student Senate Elections increased over 47 percent this year. The number of students who participated in the voting was 1,714.

According to Student Senate Speaker and Election Committee Chairperson Gabriel Hoffman, this year’s election was no more competitive than last year’s, which means that “real and sustainable gains” were achieved in turnout.

Student Senate wanted to make sure that people could access the elections via Blackboard because it receives more regular traffic than WildcatLink. Although this has been done in the past, it was not the case for recent elections. Hoffman attributes this method of voting to the increase of voter turnout. 

“We also focused on making sure that the barrier to voting was as low as possible by creating advertising and direct communications that were to-the-point and easy to understand at first glance,” Hoffman said.

“I’m hopeful that the new members of the executive board will be able to continue our successes and build on our failures,” Hoffman said.

“We ran on a platform of communication, involvement and leadership and we plan to stick to that,” Dean said.

Dean and Rubinstein want to increase communication between the university administration and UNH students in order to make sure that ideas are being communicated fully.

“We believe this is an exciting year for the University of New Hampshire and its students with the 150th anniversary celebration, the opening of the new recreation center, and the completion of the new football stadium and we are excited to be a part of that,” Dean said.

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