Alex Harrell and Kate Turner were respectively elected student body president and treasurer on Wednesday as the 2021 Student Government election concluded.
Harrell and Turner ran on the Harrell-Turner ticket as running mates. Harrell won the election with 51.08% of the vote while Turner won with 55.39%.
Last week, Emily Dengler was elected student body vice president and Morgiana McDevitt was elected speaker of the student senate. Because no president or treasurer candidate won more than 50% of the vote last week, a runoff election was held this week.
"I'm so excited to work with Alex finally," Turner said. "He's one of my best friends now and I'm just so thankful for that. I'm also so excited to work with Morgianna and Emily and really immerse myself in serving this university."
This marks the final election in which students will elect the treasurer, as a referendum to have the position appointed by the student body president passed on Feb. 24.
Harrell said this year would be pivotal for the Student Government with issues such as renaming buildings and the role the state Heritage Act will play in that process. To work on these issues, Harrell said he would work to build a relationship with the university administration.
"We have got to start strong with administration, get the ears open, get the mouths moving, get the student voice up into the administration and just start the ball rolling and go fast," Harrell said.
The Harrell-Turner campaign faced three alleged election violations, according to Harrell. The Daily Gamecock has reached out to the Student Government constitutional council, which holds hearings and rules on alleged election violations, for more information about the violations and is awaiting a response.
Emily Dengler, who won the election for vice president, ran on the EVOLVE campaign alongside Aidan Baker, who lost the presidential race to Harrell. She said she looks at working with Harrell as bringing both her and Harrell's platform to the student body.
"We both have great points, so I try to look at this as now we're getting both platforms done instead of just one person's platform and bringing more to the student body. I think we'll all work really well together. I know them personally, I think they're great people so I think we'll have a really smooth year," Dengler said.
Morgianna McDevitt, who won the election for speaker of the student senate, said she's confident the newly-elected group will work together "very well."
"I was very familiar with all the different campaign platforms and I like to say that there were similarities across everything," McDevitt said. "I'm more than hopeful that everyone is excited to really just help the student body and all the ideas we have on all our different campaign platforms were to benefit the students."
Makayla Hansen contributed to the reporting in this article.
Correction (March 3, 2021, at 9:30 p.m.): A previous version of this article misstated the percentage by which Harrell won the presidential election as 61.08%. He had 51.08% of the vote.