With the results certified and the seventh ASSU Undergraduate Senate ready to take office next Tuesday, it seemed as though there would be no surprises or unexpected twists in this year’s ASSU elections.

However, on Monday night, current Senator and Appropriations Chair Dan Stringer, a junior, declared that he was abdicating his position on next year’s Senate. Stringer had received 976 votes in this year’s election, the most votes received by any candidate, and was also considered to be a contender for the Senate chair position.

“It came as quite a shock to me,” said ASSU Undergraduate Senate Chair Chris Lin, a senior. “I hadn’t expected this. It would have been much more ideal if he had made the decision not to be a senator four weeks ago, before the election.”

As a result, the senate candidate who received the 16th highest vote count, freshman Andrew Jimenez Barragan, will now fill the vacancy as the 15th senator.

“I’m ready to serve,” Barragan said. “One good thing you’re going to get out of me is a good listener. I’m willing to work and talk with the student body and the Senate.”

Stringer said that because of time-commitment issues, he was uncertain if he wanted to continue with his position next year.

“I ran for Senate at the beginning of the quarter,” Stringer said. “I was continuously thinking about if I wanted to do it. Over the past couple of weeks some time issues and other things that I’ve thought about made me decide that it wasn’t something I wanted to do.”

A lack of time to devote to school work was a primary factor in Stringer’s decision to resign.

“Last quarter I didn’t put as much energy into my academics as I would [have]like[d] to,” Stringer said. “I’d hope this quarter would be better but I still found myself not being able to spend as much time on that aspect of my Stanford experience.”

In addition to needing more time for his studies, Stringer said that he wanted to be able to “refocus and reflect on life experiences.”

“It’s important to take time to do that,” Stringer said. “So with all the other commitments I had, I didn’t have time to do all those things that are very important to me.”

Lin said that Stringer’s performance over the past year has been exceptional.

“Dan did a very dedicated job as appropriations chair,” Lin said. “It’s probably the most time-consuming position after the senate chair and has the most direct responsibility toward student groups, so I was looking forward to having him back.”

While it would have been possible for him to continue as a senator next year, Stringer said he felt that it would not be in the best interest of the student body if he could not put 100 percent into his job.

“I figured that I could just continue to serve on the Senate, but not put as much energy into it and not give it my all,” Stringer said. “I decided that that wouldn’t be the best thing for the Senate in general, it wouldn’t be what the people who elected me to be in the Senate wanted me there for.”

Barragan said that Stringer’s decision to abdicate is a result of his dedication to the Senate.

Lin said Stringer’s knowledge of how to run the appropriations committee — which decides how much money to allocate to student groups — would have been valuable to the incoming Senate.

“In my mind it’s good to have old senators returning,” Lin said. “We are going from having three people with direct previous Senate experience down to two people.”

Nevertheless, Lin and Stringer agree that next year’s Senate will continue to run smoothly despite the recent change.

“The incoming senators, including Andrew Barragan, seem to have a lot of energy and a lot of great ideas,” Stringer said. “I think that will serve the Senate and Stanford as a whole. There are people around, myself included, that the incoming senators can draw on for support.”

Stringer stressed that his decision to step down should not have an impact on any student who is considering participating in the ASSU in the future.

“I was thinking ‘Is this going to scare people off from Senate?’ he said. “I don’t want Senate to seem like this huge thing that it doesn’t necessarily need to be. It definitely doesn’t need to be something that’s overbearing or extremely time-consuming.”