Last year, the ISU student body didn’t have a choice.

With just one slate in the running, the 2007 Government of the Student Body presidential election was – to say the least – one-sided.

That all changed in 2008 when two balanced campaigns emerged from an original pack of five to face off down the home stretch.

The winning slate of Daniel Fischer, senior in agricultural business, and Maggie Luttrell, senior in history and women’s studies, obtained more than twice the total votes that were cast in ’07.

With an increase of approximately 2,800 votes cast by the student body, both parties were happy with the light that has been cast on GSB.

GSB Election Commissioner Alden Peterson, junior in mechanical engineering, said the seriousness of both campaigns helped aid the positive attention.

“I was really surprised to see the voter turnout, I guess,” he said. “I was not expecting that.”

Current GSB President Brian Phillips, senior in political science, said the ’08 election was in the top-four elections, in respect to ballots cast, since the GSB presidential election changed to an electronic format.

With two slates in the running, both campaigns were able to increase the visibility of GSB.

“I think having two slates obviously doubles the exposure. Last year, we still went out and campaigned, but it doubles the exposure and the number of groups the candidates go out and meet,” he said.

Although there was no hiding his ear-to-ear smile, Fischer insisted that the ’08 election was more than just determining the next president of GSB.

“I think this will make it so that students know more about GSB. Both campaigns went to the residence halls and to freshman groups a lot,” Fischer said. “Hopefully this will help out the future of the Government of the Student Body, so more people are interested in it, and they see this competition.”

With the 1,317-vote loss aside, Crampton said he was disappointed, but glad voter turnout was so high.

“You can’t win all the time – there’s a lot of great leaders that have lost over and over again,” Crampton said. “I think, compared to last year especially . now that there is more attention on GSB . we will be able to get much more done and be more affective.”

Crampton said that he considers the overall election this year to be a small success for the entire GSB.

“I think it’s extremely important to have [two slates] because, as a candidate, if there weren’t people like Daniel Fischer and Maggie Luttrell running against me, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard or reached out to as many people as I did – we wouldn’t have had our acts together as much.”