The Office of ALANA Affairs snared about 25 percent of the Student Government Association Senate Thursday, with more than 90 percent of ALANA-sponsored candidates winning their respective races.

“We did great,” said Gladys Franco, the internal chair for the ALANA Caucus. “Pretty much every ALANA student that was running won in their area.”

Candidates sponsored by the Office of African, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American Affairs garnered the most votes in five out of seven areas, with Pauel Payano winning Central, Eduardo Bustamante winning the commuter district, Ama Boadu winning Northeast, Rachel Deleveaux winning Southwest/South, and Aiysha Cooper winning Sylvan. Payano and Deleveaux received more votes than any other candidate, with 56 and 51, respectively.

Student Government Association Speaker Jared Nokes attributed ALANA’s success at the polls to a recruitment drive that they put together over the last few weeks. The drive included phone calls, e-mails and meetings.

With 25 percent of the 66-person Senate this year, the ALANA caucus will again have a higher percentage of students on the Senate than there are ALANA students on campus. The student body includes about 17 percent ALANA students.

“If they’re exceeding that [17 percent mark] by five or 10 percent, I think that shows what can be done through the electoral process,” Nokes said.

Chancellor of Elections Steve Hoeschele and Nokes were both very happy with the high student turnout for the election. Hoeschele estimated that 10 percent of the campus voted, a number that nearly doubles last year’s Senate elections total.

“This is a very good one-day turnout,” Nokes said. “We usually get more in the [SGA] presidential election [in the spring], but that’s over two days.”

Franco said she believes that the ALANA campaign had not only a positive effect on the results for ALANA, but also increased awareness overall, leading to more students voting.

“If we wouldn’t have done that, I don’t think the ALANA community would have been so alive,” Franco said.

Nokes said that with 25 percent of the Senate made up of elected ALANA-sponsored senators this year, the Senate’s overall makeup will be about the same as it was last year, when it included 13 percent appointed seats, or eight appointed senators.

Nokes has chosen not to recognize the appointed seats this year, saying they conflict with the SGA Constitution.

Franco is happy with the percentage of elected ALANA senators on the Senate for this year, but said the caucus will still be working to get back the appointed seats.

“UMass students voted to keep the ALANA caucus [seats],” she said. If this isn’t a strong enough statement by the UMass community, we will be taking parliamentary procedures to insure that he abides by the bylaws and the constitution of the SGA.”

Hoeschele said he was surprised to see that three students who had incorrectly filled out nomination forms all won seats on the Senate by using a write-in campaign. Those students include Enos Henry, Tayo Aiyeku and Jason Garland, who won with 22 votes in the competitive Southwest/South district.

“I was quite surprised he pulled in as many votes as he did,” Hoeshele said.

Hoeschele said that the four referendum questions drove people to the polls to vote. Two of those four questions revolved around how to deal with the status of ALANA’s appointed seats in the future. With overwhelming votes of “yes” on Question two and “no” on Questions 4, students elected to change the SGA Constitution to include appointed seats, and rejected changing SGA bylaws to remove appointed seats if the UMass Board of Trustees does not accept the proposed changes in the constitution.

Hoeschele said the counting process, which ended after press time late Thursday night, went smoothly.

“The commission was fantastic. I basically took their methods for counting and we were able to zip right through it,” he said.