SGA elections

Westphal wins presidency, voter turnout nearly same as last election

Published Apr 24, 2013

Sophomore finance major Cody Westphal will serve as the Student Government Association President and around 33 percent of the student body voted for that position.

Junior political science major Graham McMillan lost by 336 votes, or 12 percent of the votes cast for president. Westphal won 56 percent of the vote compared to McMillan's 44 percent.

This year's presidential election had two more votes than last semester’s race.

At the end of the election, there were 2,792 total votes for SGA President. Last semester 2,790 students voted for the position.

Nick Daigle, candidate for Vice President of Operations, lost to incumbent Lauren Sharp by more than 1,200 votes.

According to TCU’s Office of Institutional Research 2012 Fact Book, there are 8,456 undergraduate students enrolled this year.

SGA members met face-to-face with organizations and stood outside of the Mary Couts Burnett Library on Tuesday to hand out buttons and pins and ask students to vote in the election.

There were campaign signs spread across campus for a few weeks similar to a national election. Each candidate also utilized social media to talk to students and explain the ease of the voting process.

All of this year's candidates explained their platform, discussed projects and outlined their visions for SGA during a TCU News Now debate.

The Treasurer and Vice President for External Affairs races were uncontested this year.

Westphal and McMillan took their presidential campaigns viral and posted videos to YouTube and Vimeo to try to reach even more students.

The online voting portal opened Tuesday at 8 a.m and allowed students a 24-hour period to vote.

SGA Election Results

President :

Cody Westphal – 1,564 votes 

Graham McMillan – 1,228 votes

Past results (total votes)

2013 President Election -2,792 votes

 2012 President Election – 2,790 votes 

2011 President Election – 2,231 votes

 2010 President Election – 1,743 votes (uncontested election)

 2009 President Election – 2,179 votes 

2008 President Election – 2,903 votes

Vice President of Operations:  

Lauren Sharp –  1,976 votes

Nick Daigle – 757 votes

Vice President of External Affairs: 

Hillary Shepheard (uncontested) – 2,359 votes

Treasurer: 

Zach Madel (uncontested) – 2,385 votes