Carson Hollingsworth and McKinsey Patterson will stay a duo for another year.
Hollingsworth, a junior in public administration, won the presidential bid with 2,814 votes, and Patterson, a junior in nursing, won vice president with 2,832.
“We did it the right way,” said Hollingsworth of his campaign’s approach. “We made sure we were completely authentic. We made sure we were doing this in the most clean and most appropriate way possible.”
Between hugs and congratulations from her fellow supporters, Patterson said the final results were something she really couldn’t believe.
“Nobody in a million years thought McKinsey Patterson would run for student government,” she said. “I don’t have the track record. I’m not an SGA-er, that’s not who I’ve ever been, and I don’t think anyone ever expected me to run — much less win.”
With an entire year of legislation to look forward to, the two couldn’t help but look at the past efforts that led them to victory.
“When we were sitting up there (waiting for the results), we were reflecting on the past few months, past few weeks, and we were just thinking that we wouldn’t do anything differently,” Hollingsworth said. “We knew that we did it the right way. We knew that if we lost, we knew we’d be happy with losing because we did it the way we wanted to do it.”
Before the election results had even been announced, however, the Hollingsworth-Patterson campaign had seemingly hit a snag.
Supporters of the campaign had at first packed into Hanna’s on the Strip to await the election results, yet were forced to make a quick change of location after they learned the bar did not accept persons under 21.
One hurried conversation later, and the nearly 100 supporters found themselves in Fort Sanders Yacht Club, where the news of their party’s victory eventually hit home across the narrow confines of the bar.
For the Hardee Morris McCandless campaign, Jennings Hardee came in second for president with 2,639 votes, just 175 votes behind Hollingsworth, while Matthew Morris also came in second for VP with 2,673 votes, just 159 votes short.
The Hardee Morris McCandless campaign said they were concerned the voting site crash may have affected results.
“We’re going to look and see what the possibility is of contesting,” Hardee said during her speech to their campaign supporters. “The voting site was down for six hours. That’s when we used most of our resources, so we’ll see what happens.”
Morris and Hardee both remarked on the integrity of their campaign to their supporters gathered at Sunspot after the results were shared.
“We did it the right way. We didn’t bully people. We just wanted to treat people like they deserve to be treated,” Morris said. “I hope the people in student government can carry on that message. That’s what it’s all about.”
Morris said even though he and Hardee’s loss came as a sombering surprise, he enjoyed the race and was proud of his campaign’s run.
“It stings right now a whole lot,” Morris said. “This is the most fun I’ll never want to have again, but I will always be proud to say I was a part of this.
“I’ll never hang my head.”
Caitlyn McCandless, who ran unopposed for Student Services Director under the Hardee Morris McCandless campaign, won with 6,726 votes.
Though McCandless won, she still expressed surprise and disappointment about her campaign’s loss.
“I truly believe that the reason that we lost is because we ran a clean campaign,” McCandless said. “We ran on feasible policy that’s actually going to happen next year. We didn’t lie and cheat our way to the top.”
The Challenge campaign, comprised of Alex Pennycuff and Fuller Edwards, won no executive positions. Pennycuff, a junior in supply chain management who was running for SGA president, totaled 1,973 votes while Edwards, a junior in supply chain management who ran for VP, totaled 1,937.
Edwards said he had no regrets after the duo found out the results.
“I’d say we ran a proud campaign. We ran on message, we didn’t run for ourselves, and we had a goal in mind,” Edwards said. “We wanted to make sure that students were represented, and sadly it didn’t go through.
“But also, we were the only campaign that didn’t have any real violations. We followed the rules the whole time, we didn’t do anything (wrong) and that’s something to be proud of.”
Pennycuff declined to comment on the election results.
The voter turnout more than doubled this year, with an increase of 3,822 votes.
The number of voters in 2015, with 21,451 undergraduate students enrolled at the time, totaled 3,735 vote, while this year, with 21,863 undergraduates enrolled, 7,557 students came out to vote.
Current Student Services Director Mariah Beane, senior in business analytics, called this year’s voter turnout “historic” for UT’s SGA elections.
“Win or lose, voter turnout was as high as it’s been in several years,” Edwards said, “and that’s something to be proud about.”
Carson Hollingsworth and McKinsey Patterson - Winners of the 2016 SGA elections.
