This week ISU students chose Andy Tofilon and Charlie Johnson as their new Government of the Student Body executives.

Tofilon and Johnson will do a great job representing student interests on campus, to the Board of Regents and at the state Capitol.

Both have experience in campus government, and both are very dedicated to their work.

Next year, the budget fight will intensify as the state continues to cut funding for higher education.

It will be vital to have experienced leaders, such as Tofilon and Johnson, lobbying regents and legislators to keep tuition low.

We hope they will continue the trend started by this year’s executives in actively supporting student interests across the state.

In this year’s GSB election, students set a record for voter turnout in a GSB election.

Over 6,000 voters logged on to the voting Web site to cast their votes for their student representatives. Voter turnout more than doubled from last year’s turnout of 3,002.

GSB elections are one place where student votes truly count. Most students will never be directly affected by who is elected president of the United States. But the GSB president can directly affect each and every ISU student.

ISU students surpassed their cross-state peers and the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa in voter turnout.

Over 25 percent of ISU students voted, while only 15 percent of U of I students and 19 percent of UNI students voted in their student body elections.

Obviously the ease and convenience of online voting was enough to involve more students in the election process. We hope that trend will continue.

Congratulations to the new GSB executives and to all those who cast a vote to put them there.

editorialboard: Carrie Tett, Jocelyn Marcus, Katie Goldsmith, Andrea Hauser and Tim Paluch