An increase in the number of polling places helped to make the turnout for this week’s Student Government elections the highest in years.

About 1,200 votes were tallied, elections coordinator Jessica Catto said – almost twice last year’s election total of 727 ballots cast.

This year’s turnout is sIightly more than the1999 elections when 1,180 students voted.

Catto called the turnout “fabulous,” crediting the high numbers to having five polling places open, three more than last year’s elections.

Alison Mormino, the only presidential candidate, received 1,087 votes. Seventy-three write-in votes were also tallied.

In the student vice president for academic affairs race, Ronnie Deedrick received 701 votes to challenger Justin Brinkmeyer’s 422.

The lone candidate for student vice president for student affairs, Lisa Flam, received 1,033 votes. Twenty-six write-in votes were also cast for the position.

Marty Ruhaak captured the student vice president for public affairs race handily, winning 877 votes to challenger Skye Brouwer’s 222 tallies. Five write-in ballots were cast.

In the closest race of the night, Amy Leonard defeated challenger Tim Edwards to win the student vice president for financial affairs seat by a total of 670 votes to 513 votes. One write-in ballot was counted.

Andrea Mitchell was elected the new student dean of the College of Sciences, winning 540 votes to incumbent Nick Owens’ 453 votes.

The voting numbers dropped off significantly, however, for the Student Senate race. The highest vote-getter, Jessica Jarrett, won an at-large senate seat with 664 votes.

All nine senate candidates won a seat, as the number of candidates was smaller than the number of open seats in the election.

The newly-elected senators are: off-campus; Ryan Galloway and Leesa Peters, on-campus; Lucy Boone, Lindsey Baum, Brian Ford and George Lesica, and at-large; Jarrett, Sherri Abufakuseh and Donna Fernandez.