Sam Consiglio and Zach Jacobson were elected student body president and vice president for the 68th session, in an election that was contested for the first time in four years.

Consiglio, a third-year geography and actuarial science student currently serves as vice president and Jacobson, a third-year secondary education social studies student and the current University Activities Commission director. 

The pair ran against Mei Bean, a second-year sociology student and the current Intergovernmental Affairs Commission director, and Colin Rafter, a third-year software engineering student who serves as the Academic Affairs Commission director. 

“I think [the election] was really healthy, in past years it’s been hard to disagree with people without it being personal,” Consiglio said. “Two of our friends were running, who did an amazing job.”

Jacobson said that competition breeds excellence, which he thought helped both tickets strive to improve and reach more students during the election.

Voting took place via a Qualtrics survey that began Monday morning and ended at 5 p.m. today with the election results posted outside the senate office at approximately 5:20 p.m.

Consiglio and Jacobson won 69% of the total vote with 902 votes and Bean and Rafter received 30% percent of the total vote with 384 votes. Write-in candidates received 1% of the total vote with 12 votes.

“We’ve turned a lot of good corners at the end of the year,” Jacobson said. “I’m really excited to continue to grow what the Student Senate can do for students.” 

1,298 students voted in the presidential election, surpassing the 1208 ballots cast during the last senate election. 17 students ran for 12 open on-campus seats and 14 students ran for 18 open off-campus seats.

Elected on-campus senators and vote count:

Logan Ackerman (510)

Dylan Baker (404)

Ally Etzler (402)

Brenna Strojinc (402)

Rosana Fernandez Villa (390)

Ethan Brunke (384)

Madeline Podolinksy (379)

Tia Beirne (374)

Mina Pillsbury (373)

Avery De Ruyter (353)

Isabelle Shepard (349)

Nelly Christelle (311) (coin toss)

Students Nelly Christelle and Kaden Zink both received 311 votes for an on-campus senator seat and Christelle won the coin toss.

Elected off-campus senators and vote count: 

Ben Johnson (545)

Emma Velazquez (487)

Sara Multhauf (441)

Siena Emerson (439)

Madison Shafman (421)

Sarah Schrauth (420)

Victoria Czap (409)

Reagan Jimenez (391)

Cole Morehouse (387)

Zachary Cardille (364)

Jonathan Hull (358)

Adam Freitag (349)

Kaitlyn Hevrin (346)

Kyler Simonet (331)

Senators-elect will be sworn in at the April 22 senate general assembly meeting. The president- and vice president-elect will be sworn in on April 29 when the 68th session begins. 

Consiglio and Jacobson said they are looking forward to the new session beginning and for their work on campus to continue, especially bringing in more student perspectives.

“We can be as involved as we want to be, but at the end of the day that’s the perspective of involved students who have been in leadership positions,” Consiglio said. “Being sure that we’re able to hear all the voices on campus and bring those to the table and actually make a difference and an impact in their lives in a positive light I think is really important.”

While Bean and Rafter aren’t sure how they will be involved next session, they both plan to continue working on their campaign initiatives. 

“This definitely isn’t the end of my involvement. What we have stood for and what we have campaigned on are things that we really genuinely want to see get done,” Rafter said. “I’m not certain what it will look like but I do want to be involved in senate in some regard to continue to get things done.”

Leick can be reached at [email protected] and Kasper can be reached at [email protected].

Correction: A previous of this story reported it had been three years since the last contested Student Senate election instead of four years.