Next year's council decided

And the winner is… Travis Mazereeuw.

Mazereeuw defeated his competing FSU presidential candidate J.P. Renzella with a total of 690 votes to 587. Mazereeuw will now be the president of the FSU for the 2007/2008 academic year.

Mazereeuw was elated to have been chosen by the students to represent them for next year.

“It feels fantastic to have the students support,” Mazereeuw said. “The hard work that I have put into my campaign is nothing compared to the hard work I am willing and will put into my run as president.”

Mazereeuw said that his approachability was one of the main factors for him coming out on top in the election.

“I have an easy-going nature and am very open-minded and any students that I talk to are very willing to listen, and I guess the students thought I was better for the job,” Mazereeuw said.

Mazereeuw said he wants to thank everyone that voted for him and he welcomes everyone to join him in a post-election celebratory party.

“I am going to gather everyone that I know and have a big party and you are invited,” said Mazereeuw, who added that running against Renzella was a tough competition.

“J.P. was a great candidate and I am glad that it was him that I was running against,” Mazereeuw said.

Renzella was disappointed with the outcome of the election and felt that his hectic schedule factored into the election results.

“I have a lot of class and I have been working on my actual council stuff and I have been putting a lot of time making sure the 30 Hour Famine happens, so it took away from time where I could be out meeting more students and convincing them to vote and explain what I am running for,” Renzella said. “I did not put as much time into that as I know Travis did.”

Renzella said Mazereeuw's campaign promises and slogans helped him win the election.

“Students go for an image, a slogan, and they go for ‘what can you give me right now' and ‘what can you promise me and tell me',” Renzella said. “Travis put out a lot of broad promises but never actually said how he would accomplish it. The fact that he said, more fun, more exciting, and bigger and better, and pulled on emotion to say this is bringing forth dreams and building tomorrow for the future of your children, that really helped him.”

The closest race in the FSU executive election was between Jason Wilton and Kimberly Walton for the VP Internal position. Wilton, who came out on top by only seven votes, had a total of 585 votes compared to Walton's 578.

Arif Erten won for the position of VP External with a total of 399 votes, followed by Tamara Bernard with 370 votes, Jairus Patterson with 323 votes and Ben Milczarczyk with 129 votes.

Sean Russell totaled 568 votes to claim the position of VP Entertainment for 2007/2008, beating out Darius Mirshahi, 367 votes and Eric Blimkie, 279 votes.

Chris Pressey will be the next VP Finance, as his 593 votes surpassed Mark Loader, who earned 544 votes.

Rounding out the 2007/2008 FSU Executive Council, Jonathan Hillis, who ran uncontested, gathered 1062 votes to claim the position of VP Athletics for next year.

A total of 1351 students cast votes in the 2007 FSU Executive election, surpassing the total of 1207 students who voted in the 2006 election.