The Wilson-Seidman campaign slogan is “Moving Clemson in the right direction.” After last week’s elections, Joey Wilson and Nicki Seidman will get
their chance.
Wilson, a senior bioengineering major and political science minor, was elected president. His running mate Nicki Seidman, a junior political science and language and international trade major, was elected vice president. According to Seidman, the core of their platform was to do“what students want right here, right now.”
Out of 5,167 votes cast, Wilson and Seidman received 50.06 percent of the votes. Runners-up Emily Blackshire, a language and international health major, and Hunter Burgess, a science teaching major, received 45.29 percent of the votes. The margin of victory was 259 votes.
The other 4.65 percent of the vote was write-in candidates.
On their win, Wilson said, “To be honest, I’m surprised. We’ve seen so much great support from people.”
Wilson, who is from Duncan, praised his opponents. “Emily and Hunter were great candidates and great people as well. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I’m truly honored. I can’t believe it.”
When asked why he thinks he won, he said “I think we had the best platform, to be honest. I think we had the most tangible ideas for Clemson, and I think students saw that. I also think students saw how passionate we were just as they were. We put in a lot of hard work, and I think students saw that. I think that might have been the winning factor.”
Running-mate Nicki Seidman, who is from Charleston, expressed her surprise saying, “I am shocked. I am so excited to be given the honor to represent Clemson. I can’t believe this is actually happening to me.”
Blackshire also had positive things to say about her opponents, “I think Joey and Nicki did a great job. This is what Clemson wanted, and I know that they’ve got great leadership skills, and they’ll carry the team next year. We’re happy for them.”
Burgess took the opportunity to express support for his running mate. “I love you Clemson University, even still. And regardless of the results, Emily Blackshire is the best thing that has ever happened to this campus. I think Emily was the best candidate at the school for student body president,” said Burgess.
Current student body president, Shannon Kay, is “really excited to see what Joey and Nicki are going to do next year.”
As her tenure as CUSG president is winding down, she reflected on her time, saying, “the past year in general has been extremely rewarding and exciting.”
About the technical issue that halted voting for the elections, Kay calls it “just a CCIT issue. They had to go back and rework some coding and getting fixed. Fortunately, we did get it fixed.”
Voting was extended 11:59 p.m. on Thursday to accommodate the twelve hours made unavailable by the technical issue. Despite the issue, Director of Elections Amanda Nerone found the process a success. “I think the election process went very well overall. Yes, we did have some hurdles, but the voter turnout was just like any other year, so I was really happy with that, Nerone said.”
She continued that the issue itself may have “got[ten] more people to vote because there was so much hype around it. Some people who might not have heard about voting heard about voting rom the technical issues. And we had an extended window so that helped us as well.”
Associate Director of Elections Board Tabitha Davis thinks that the election board and CUSG handled the technical issue the best way that they could. “With the past of servers crashing, you really just have to look at it with a positive outlook. When it happens, you just deal with it then and not get really stressed out about it. It was getting it back up as fast as possible.”
David Gundana, Senate President-elect, “excited to work with Joey and Nicki. They have a great platform. They worked hard. They deserve it.”
Gundana looks forward to working with them on their platform goals, particularly those concerned with academics and enhancing the Clemson experience as a whole.
On the subject of their win and their platform, junior marketing major Anna Ferrante said, “I was really happy to hear that [Joey and Nicki] won. I think they had a really great platform. They had a lot of issues that people could relate to and that people were concerned about. I’m very excited to see what they have in store for the next year.”
