Tiffany Dollar and Marlon Holmes elected to ASPSU presidency

Tiffany Dollar and Marlon Holmes are the newly elected president and vice president of ASPSU. The election results of the 2012–13 Associated Students of Portland State University election were released after the resolution of the eligibility of candidate Diamond Zerework. Zerework was initially disqualified from the candidacy on Monday but was reinstated Tuesday.

The race was close, with Dollar and Holmes receiving 741 votes. Zerework and her vice presidential candidate Anam Pasha came in second place with 678 votes.

Students gathered in the North Park Blocks room of Smith Memorial Student Union to hear the results, which were announced by Elections Board Chair Jesse Hansen.

Dollar and Holmes ran on the platform of student advocacy and tuition reduction. Both Holmes and Dollar consider themselves to be non-traditional students, and their candidacy statement told students that they were “just like you.”

The newly elected student fee committee members are Sean Green, Cindy Reyes, Katie Slayden, James Au, Tyson Jones, Nhi Vu and Krystine McCants.

The new ASPSU constitution was passed by an overwhelming margin, with 2,731 votes received in favor of the revisions.

The winning senators are Rosa Martinez, Phoenix Singer, Yesenia Silva-Hernandez, Michael Collins, Julia Ngyuen, Anthony Stine, Soledad Hernandez, Amber Kelsal, Michelle Jeong, Ryan Day, Melissa Timora, Elvin Ramirez, Raz Budhathoki, Moayad Lingga and Tom Worth.

There was a 9.32 percent voter turnout for the election, a total just under ASPSU’s goal of 10 percent voter turnout. There were a total of 2,771 votes cast in the election. Hansen considered the turnout to be “fantastic.”

Vice President-elect Holmes was surprised and elated over the results. “I was asked to run, and I never intended on running or planned on running,” Holmes said. “I love what I do here as far as advocating for students. I’ve learned the same issues I’ve had are the same issues that other students have.”

Dollar and Holmes plan to hit the ground running. They are currently planning on working on several projects ranging from tuition regulation to communication on campus.

“Our platform really focuses on community building on campus as well,” Dollar said.

“We’ve already completed our campaign promise by extending the hours in the Broadway computer lab to seven days a week,” she added.

“The main project I have in mind is to make a working group with Professor Thomas Potiowsky, the chair of the economics department. He is a former state economist. I was going to present to him solutions for funding tuition here in the state and how we can present that to the next billing legislature.” Holmes said that the goal is to come up with a way to fund education within the state.

“The whole campaign was for students, and I actually received the news while I was in a legislative delegation,” Dollar said. During the time of the interview, she was in Salem, where she attended a higher education committee meeting during the legislature’s interim working days.

When asked to comment about the controversy surrounding the eligibility of candidate Zerework, Dollar said, “I was dedicated to running a really clean campaign…I respect Diamond as a candidate, as a viable woman candidate. I was actually glad she was not disqualified from the race. I would have supported her had she won the election.”