Unofficial election results for Student Government Association senators show that every candidate on the ballot — as well as some write-in candidates — will be offered a seat for the upcoming year in the university’s representative council.
Students from each academic college, as well as international, adult learner, military, out-of-state, graduate and underserved student demographics, voted earlier this week for their Senate representatives.
Despite there being fewer candidates than there were open positions, with the exception of military and veterans, out-of-state, engineering and graduate senator seats, there were significantly more students who participated in the election for the 68th session compared to the 67th session. Unofficial election results released Wednesday night indicate that more than 2,300 students participated in this year’s elections for student body president, vice president and senators.
Additionally, several write-in candidates who received write-in votes for senator positions, upon verification, will be offered Senate seats for the 68th session. The certified results will be announced on Friday, according to the unofficial announcement.
Unverified Senate election results are as follows:
Applied Studies
Out of the six seats available, no candidates applied for the applied studies senator position. However, there were 20 write-in votes, including three separate votes for William Crawford, a sports management student and the social media manager for WSU’s chapter of Turning Point USA.
93.7% of applied studies voters abstained from writing in an applied studies senator. A total of 238 voters participated in the applied studies senator election.
Business
Three candidates ran for the six open senator positions under the Barton School of Business. Returning senators Gavin Barnes and Luke Bumm received 119 and 145 votes, respectively, securing their seats for the upcoming year. Roaya Cheham, an information technology management information systems and international business student, also received 145 votes, or 33.6% of total votes cast.
Additionally, there were 23 write-in candidates, with Rene Luna Reyes receiving three write-in votes and Connor Pore receiving two.
Other notable write-in candidates include one vote each for “noot noot” and “coorslover,” WSU social media personalities on YikYak, an anonymous discussion board platform. “Batman” also received one vote.
Fifty-three students, or 15.1% of business student voters, abstained.
Engineering
One of the few senator groups to have interested candidates equal to available seats, all six engineering senator candidates will be offered positions for the 2025-2026 school year.
Matthew Phan, the current student body vice president, had 267, or 21.2% of votes, the most out of any engineering candidate. Candidate Abby Otten, a biomedical engineering student, followed with the second largest number of votes: 245. Candidate Cody Black received 195 votes, Muhammad Abdullah Tiwana had 187, Andrew Sauls had 176 and Andrew Beam received 153 votes.
Student voters wrote in 39 candidates, but none will be considered for the Senate positions as they did not receive more votes than the official candidates. A total of 679 engineering students voted, with 88, or 13%, abstaining.
Fine Arts
Returning Sen. Patrick Murphy was the only student to file for one of the two available fine arts Senate seats next year. Murphy received 141, or 91%, of fine arts votes. Of the 14 write-in votes, five were cast for Christian Seals and three were cast for George Wilner, the deceased namesake of Wilner Auditorium.
Out of the 169 students who voted, 19 abstained.
Health Professions
Both running health professions senators will likely receive a Senate seat, and the college’s third and fourth senators may be elected based on one or two write-in votes.
Returning senator Jasmine Peng earned more than 50% of the 295 health professions students’ votes. Guillermo Argumedo Lopez, the 2024 WSU Student Affairs Student Employee of the Year, received 130, or 40.6% of votes.
Fifteen cast write-in votes, including two for internet meme Marvin Beak, were also cast. Additionally, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also received one vote.
Twenty-three students abstained.
Honors
Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College Senator Riley Hansen will retain her seat next year after receiving 93.8% of votes. Of the 129 total votes, seven votes were write-ins, and 20 students abstained. A senate seat remains open for the honors college and may be filled by one of the seven write-in candidates. Otherwise, the seat will remain empty.
Liberal Arts and Sciences
With 562 total votes cast, each of the five candidates who ran as a Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences senator will receive a seat, with current student body president Kylee Hower as the potential sixth seat.
Current Speaker of the Senate Victoria Owens received 289, or 27.5% of votes. Nazanin Kasirosafar trailed with 204 votes, and returning senator Josh Mallard received 185. New senators Case Brown and Braeden Miller will also be offered Senate seats, with 177 and 169 votes, respectively.
Hower received seven of the 27 write-in votes.
Sixty-seven LAS students abstained from voting.
Adult learner
Sole candidate Andrew Hatch will retain his seat after receiving 164, or 97%, of student votes.
Out of the 180 votes, 12 voters abstained.
There is one additional empty seat.
Graduate
Three graduate students ran for the three available graduate senator seats, and each is likely to be granted the role. Katrina Henley received 211, or 43.6%, of votes, while Muzammil Adnan Shaik received 150. Rizwan Raisulhaq received 107, or 22.1%, of the 406 votes cast.
Sixty-three students, or 15.5% of graduate student voters, abstained.
International
Half of the available international student seats will be filled by the two ticket runners, Lucy Mungarevaani and Aaron “AJ” Haynes. Mungarevaani received 51% of the total votes cast while Haynes, a returning senator, received 28.9%.
There were also 70 write-ins, comprising a little more than 20% of all international student votes cast. Fifty-one of those votes were for Asim Mahat, who accounted for more than half of the write-ins. Mahat will likely be offered the third international student seat.
Of the 363 votes, 50 voters abstained.
Military
TeRay Boyd will be offered the sole military and veterans seat after receiving 22 of the 25 total votes cast. The military senator position received no write-in votes, but three students, or 12% of the total votes cast, abstained.
Out of state
The out-of-state senator position was one of the few to have competition for its two seats. Anna Wilding received 132 out of the 339 votes cast. Ashly Artiaga received 127, securing her seat as the second out-of-state senator. Tyler Beatty, however, received 115 votes and will not be awarded the position.
Forty-two students abstained, and nine students wrote in candidates.
Underserved
The underserved senator vote received the most votes out of any constituency on the ballot. With 1,097 total voters, 629 voted for returning senator Evelyn Lewis and 500 voted for returning Raziah Izard.
Three seats remain vacant. There were 27 cast write-in votes, including two for Collin Nguyen and two for Hower.
14.1%, or 155 students, abstained.
What’s next?
Members of the Student Government Association Elections Commission are currently working to certify the election results, which will be announced Friday, April 11. According to the uncertified results, sole candidates Jia Wen Wang and Amy Nguyen won the president and vice president position.
Additional information regarding the election results can be found on The Sunflower’s website.
