Photo Courtesy of Bárbara Muziotti
Candidates Maria Cuesta and Colin McAulay are elected to the office of Student Body President and Vice President
BY BRANDYN FRAGOSA, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
On April 1, the results for the Spring 2024 election were revealed to the Mason student body. The winning ticket of sophomore Maria Cuesta and junior Colin McAulay have been elected to the office of student body president and vice president.
The Cuesta-McAulay ticket reacted to the news in a statement: “To everyone who supported us throughout this campaign, to the team, and to every student who participated in this election, thank you. This is a win for all students. Thanks to you, we have been elected to be your Student Body President and Vice-President,” Cuesta-McAulay said.
“The feeling of elation that we are experiencing is unreal. Today, we are taking the time to reach out to everyone who helped us and to thank them for what they’ve done. Tomorrow, we are getting right to work. Students at Mason have decided that the University should work for us, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
The goals of the Cuesta-McAulay administration, which focuses on the three pillars of student representation, student life, and promoting and protecting DEI, can be seen on their platform. During the election, an interview with Cuesta-McAulay was held with Fourth Estate.
This was the first year ranked-choice voting was used since being proposed last year. In total, 1,795 votes were cast, which was 321 more votes compared to last year’s election.
Regarding votes for first choice, Cuesta-McAulay took the lead and received 41.9 percent, or 750 votes.
Faris-Rawat received 22.5 percent or 403 votes.
Curtis-Cora received 20.9 percent or 375 votes.
Bekele-Navid received 14.9 percent or 267 votes.
After 3 rounds of voting, Cuesta-McAulay won the executive ticket for Mason’s student body president and vice president, receiving 55.3 percent or 978 of the 1795 votes. Cuesta-McAulay beat Curtis-Cora, who received 35.7 percent or 628 of the 1795 votes cast, in the final round. 9 percent, or 189 votes of 1795 total votes cast abstained from voting for the Executive Ticket.
Fourth Estate reached out to the remaining tickets and they did not respond to comment.
Thirty senators were also elected to office for the 45th Student Senate. The chamber will consist of Griffin Crouch, Scott Tatum, Kaylee Fernandez, Zara Saemi, Aditi Sharma, Gibran Adnan, June Johnson, Jawad Hosseini, Illia Sheikholeslami, Charlotte Bell, Peter Weiss, Angela Monteiro, Austin Emery, Aakriti Adhikari, Quinn Fenicle, Ty Carson, Sueda Erdogan, Sophia Lorenzo, Adila Aghayeva, Yena Kwon, Michael Ienzi, William Barker, August Schmoll, Brett Rieken, Matthew Baldwin, Luke Baja-Ricketts, Lacey Eckert and Charles Turner.
Cuesta and McAulay will be sworn into the office of Student Body President and Vice President in the first meeting of the 45th Student Senate, along with the senators. The meeting will be Thursday, April 25 at 4:30 p.m. in Merten Hall.
