The below-freezing temperature outside did not stop supporters, close personal friends and campaign members of Ignite Mizzou from celebrating at Traditions Plaza on Wednesday evening.

Juniors Payton Head and Brenda Smith-Lezama were officially elected into office in the 2014 Missouri Students Association presidential election with 54 percent of the votes, followed by the Myles Artis/Mary Cate O’Brien slate with 37 percent and the Jordan McFarland/T.J. Hinch slate with eight percent.

Voting totals this year reached 7,075 votes, the highest ever in MU history. Last year the student body cast only 5,387 votes.

MSA Senate Speaker Ben Bolin said the uptake in voters was due to the slates’ appeal to campus, the collaboration between the Board of Election Commissioners and the Department of Student Communications to push election information out to the student body and the creative use of social media by the slates.

“The (uptake in voters) was higher than ever before this year,” Bolin said. “This turnout is only the start to a much larger wave of change to MU.”

Smith-Lezama said she and Head didn’t stop campaigning until the polls were officially closed.

“I always talk (with Payton) about the election a few years ago back that was lost by 25 votes,” Smith-Lezama said. “Even with 20 minutes left before 5 p.m., we wanted to get those 25 votes. We were (determined) to (get those 25 votes), and to know we won by that big of a margin is absolutely incredible.”

Chung’s announcement of Head/Smith-Lezama as the winner left the crowd of Ignite Mizzou supporters in a frenzy. Several chants of ‘One Mizzou’ and ‘We’re taking over’ ensued in celebration.

“The amount of support that we’ve had throughout this whole process has been absolutely incredible,” Smith-Lezama said.

Shortly after the announcement, McFarland approached Head and Smith-Lezama to shake Head’s hand. McFarland told Head that the whole university won with Head’s election, and later said he wouldn’t rule out running next year.

“As a candidate, you always say you expect to win,” McFarland said. “Tonight, Mizzou won, and, no matter what, I always expected Mizzou to win.”

Shortly after McFarland walked away, Artis and O’Brien offered their congratulations to the winning slate. O’Brien later said everyone did a good job in the election year.

“It was anyone’s game,” she said. “Everyone did an amazing job campaigning, and everyone’s platform was phenomenal. We give our greatest congratulations to Payton and Brenda, and our work here is not done at Mizzou.”

Artis agreed with O’Brien that the work does not stop here.

“We are not done at all,” Artis said. “We are going to continue to work. We are not going to disappear whatsoever. The people have spoken, and we’re not done. We are going to continue to work.​”

Smith-Lezama and Head struggled to formulate words, but said they were not the only ones who won Wednesday night.

“This is literally beyond words,” Smith-Lezama said. “Mizzou has made history tonight.”