Mmegwa wins 2014 presidency

Mmegwa won the runoff election with 450 votes, more than three times as many as his opponent, Blaire Bloxom, who received 137.

“I think I won because the members of the class recognized my commitment to the class and believed that I was the candidate best fit to represent them,” Mmegwa said in an e-mail.

When asked about his plans for the year, Mmegwa said he is “most excited to bring a sense of identity to our class, through events, apparel and general community building.”

Bloxom said in an e-mail that she has not decided whether to run for another student government position.

“Of course I’m disappointed in the results ... because I put a lot of time and effort into the campaign,” she said. “I don’t regret any of it because of all the amazing friends I made along the way.”

Each candidate came close to being disqualified from the race. Mmegwa and Bloxom accrued 45 and 48 penalty points, respectively, for exceeding the $50 campaign spending limit set by USG elections rules. Candidates accumulate 10 points for each dollar they spend over the limit and are disqualified if they receive 50 penalty points.

“Both candidates violated the elections rules regarding budget by exceeding their allotted limits,” USG elections manager Tony Xiao ’12 explained in an e-mail. “They have both acknowledged their violations, and the other elections managers and I assigned penalty points.”

Moses won a close three-way runoff for vice president with a plurality of votes. Moses received 227 votes, while his opponents Trap Yates and Devon Barrett received 173 and 166 votes, respectively.

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The three-way runoff came after Yates and Barrett tied for second place in the first round of voting. USG elections rules specify that first-round elections must proceed to runoffs in races where no candidates receive the majority of the vote, but it does not account for instances when candidates tie in the first round.

“Since there were not two candidates receiving the highest number of votes — there were three — this scenario was not described by the constitution,” Xiao said. “The elections managers decided and announced before conducting the runoff that the candidate receiving the plurality in the runoff would be elected, rather than potentially holding a third vote and forestalling final results any longer into midterms and leaving the freshman class without a full government in place.”

“I was totally not expecting [to win] at all,” Moses said in an e-mail, explaining that he was “running against two very worthy opponents.”

Yates said he was not particularly disappointed by the results.

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“I have faith in all our class officers to get things done and do it well,” he said in an e-mail. “Running was a lot of fun, and I got to have a campaign rally, so I can check that off my list of life goals. I’m happy with where I’m at right now, and don’t really feel a need to run for anything else. But I suppose you never know!”

Yates is also a contributing writer for The Daily Princetonian.

The runoff election for the position of treasurer was the closest.

Deng was elected treasurer after narrowly defeating her opponent, Anjali Menon, by a vote count of 297 to 279. Menon is also a ‘Prince’ contributing writer.

Deng said she will focus on building class unity. “In addition to study breaks and events, I’m excited for 2014 to have great apparel!” she said.

Mary D’Onofrio, who is also a contributing writer for the ‘Prince,’ was elected secretary with 749 votes after the initial round of voting, which took place Oct. 11–13. Andrea Baglioni was elected social chair, also in the first round of voting, after earning 388 votes.

There was confusion in the run-up to initial voting, with several candidate statements not posted to the USG website until the final day before voting.

However, Yaroshefsky said in an e-mail to the ‘Prince’ that runoff voting went smoothly.

He also said he was pleased with the turnout, noting that “in the initial vote, over 30 percent more votes were cast for class president than last year.”

In the runoff election, 587 students voted in the presidential race, compared to 749 votes in the first round.

Barrett and Menon did not respond to requests for comment.