The BLOC Party destroyed the competition when student government elections results were announced on March 9 in the Union Ballroom.
BLOC Party presidential and vice presidential candidates Jake Kirkham and Toby Collett beat opponents Lindsey Sine and Dave Martini of the Big Idea Party by 389 votes.
Overall, the BLOC Party presidential candidates received 54 percent of the vote, compared with the Big Idea candidates’ 42 percent. Write-in candidates accounted for the remaining 4 percent of the vote. Current Associated Students of the University of Utah President Ali Hasnain and Vice President John Poelman came in third place with eight of the write-in votes.
Upon hearing of their victory, the crowd lifted President elect Jake Kirkham and Vice President elect Toby Collett into the air as they cheered.
“I’m ecstatic, I owe it to all the people that helped along the way,” Kirkham said.
Kirkham attributed his party’s success to their detailed planning and dedicated campaign workers.
“We just started planning early-like seven months ago-and we got the right people?this was a long time coming,” he said.
Mindy Chidester, senior class president elect, beat Big Idea Party candidate Shahene Pezeshki by 351 votes-a margin of 22 percent.
Sine, presidential candidate for the Big Idea Party, was confident that ASUU would do just fine with Kirkham and Collett in charge.
“I think ASUU is in very good hands,” Sine said. “For everyone that supported me, I’m so appreciative because I had a lot of great support throughout the whole thing?Now I’m gonna go get drunk with Bode and the gang.”
The BLOC Party won all but 10 elected positions, including president/vice president, senior class president and 54 out of 64 ASUU Senate and General Assembly seats.
Of the remaining 10 seats, write-in candidates in the College of Architecture took two-a rarity in ASUU elections, elections officials said.
Mark Thornton, the only independent candidate in the election, won, receiving the most votes in the College of Humanities.
Voter turnout for the elections fell from last year. Only 12 percent of the student body (3,461 students) voted in the elections, which is down 6 percent from last year’s 18 percent (5,111 students).
