Category: Uncategorized

Executive Ticket Election Results

Ticket	Votes	Percentage
Sophia Nguyen & Celine Apenteng	936	54.2%
Dunni Oni & Zuri Hodnett	400	23.16%
John Jennings & Vivian Hurd	344	19.92%
Abstain from Voting	47	2.72%
TOTAL	1727	100%

Senate Election Results

Rank	Name	Votes
1	Ana Belen Garcia Inga	847
2	Paul Wyche	802
3	Josh Sol	677
4	Christopher Tatum	530
5	Noor Abuzinadah	507
6	Zayd Hamid	385
7	Nell Palumbo	308
8	Farhan Babar	297
9	John Dressel	268
10	Jordan Locke	241
11	Alexander Williams	229
12	Patrick Swisher	209
13	Ethan Connell *	23
14	Aarush Jambunathan *	21
15	Nishok Chitvel *	18
16	M Sullivan *	17
17	Colin Mcaulay *	16
18	Maya Khachab *	9
19	Jack Fedak *	4
20	Matt Nguyen *	3
21	Austin Emery *	2
22	Julien Bouvery *	2
23	Kiana Portillo *	2

* Write-in Candidate

Abstain from Voting: 388 votes

Green shading signifies successful election to office.

Results certified at 11:39 AM on April 11, 2022

Come meet your student body representatives at the RSO Leadership Conference. Student Government will be hosting an information session and Q&A with RSOs. The event will be held on March 15th @ 2-3PM, March 16th @ 3-4pm, March 17th @ 5-6pm, and March 18th @ 12:30-1:30pm. Come join us!

Senator Peter Roberto, who serves as the Senate Military Liaison, has been working hard on a brand new initiative: the Veteran Career Panel event. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 11 at 1 PM. You can learn more and RSVP by click here.

Here is what Senator Roberto had to say about his role and the initiative:

The Veterans Career Panel initiative involves my role as Military Liaison for Student Senate. I am organizing a career panel for our Veteran Mason students, Mason students who are currently serving (either active duty, with their National Guard, or in the Reserves) or are members of our ROTC program. The event will be held over Zoom at 1pm on November 11th, Veterans Day. We are also planning to have the event streamed on university TVs!

Most of my time working on the event has been focused on getting panelists for it since I wanted our panelists to represent our Military community on campus. Currently we have one former member of our ROTC program, a Mason professor and combat veteran, a Navy Reservist and Graduate program coordinator at Mason, and hopefully we’ll have a recent Mason graduate and veteran as well!

Getting this together has taken a lot of work not only from myself but from our wonderful Student Government Advisors, Student Government Leadership, and our partners in the Office of Military Services, Career Services, the Alumni Association, and Event Services.

On October 8, the Student Senate voted to fund the first phase of the Patriot Protection Program. This program, which is a comprehensive project across several departments, aims to improve safety for George Mason Students. The first phase includes plans to improve lighting on campus.

Here is what Vice Chair Ransom Fox had to say about the initiative:

Hey everyone! As you all know, lack of lighting on campus has been an issue for quite a while now and unfortunately no action has taken place to remedy this concern. However, thankfully, George Mason’s administration, members of Student Government, and I have been working non-stop for the last four months to add more lighting on campus.

The goal of this project is to increase campus safety and alleviate worrisome safety concerns in an appropriate and efficient manner. Last Thursday, our project got a giant leap forward when the Student Senate passed – unanimously – a bill that will buy 160 lights! The lights have been ordered and will be arriving sometime next week. Once they arrive, my colleagues and I will be meeting with the Mason administration to plan a pilot installation of the lights and to create a fully fleshed out game plan for the entire project.

Speaking of installing the light – it’s very easy! All we have to do is stick them into the ground! We will be needing volunteers to help us build the lights and Protect Our Patriots, so if you and your friends are interested in doing some easy, fun community service to brighten up our campus and foster a safer community, stay on the lookout for updates regarding such opportunities. I am so proud of the work we have been doing as a Mason community as a whole. We are showing that by working together we can get the job done and improve our community in a way that could never have even been dreamed of before.

Stay tuned and if you want to keep up to date about what is happening with this project, follow our Instagram @patriotprotectionprogram. 

To learn more about the Patriot Protection Program or any other Senate initiative, visit our legislation log.

Congratulations to the brand new student senators elected this week. For full results, please visit our elections page.

In the coming weeks we’ll be talking with the new freshman/transfer senators to learn more about their big plans for the upcoming semester. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Dominic Pino, Chairman of the Election of Disputes Commission (EDC), to learn more about the commission and its role in Student Government.

• So, Dominic, what is the role of the EDC?
  • The EDC is the third branch of Student Government, and we serve a similar function to the judicial branch in the United States government. We rule on cases that are brought to us and settle disputes between the other two branches. Unlike the judicial branch, however, we also hold the elections for the other two branches of Student Government. We write the Election Code and oversee all the relevant forms and procedures for running for office.
• What is your role as the chief commissioner?
  • I was elected by the other members of the Commission to be the chair.  It’s mostly a “first among equals” situation as I don’t have any extra say in the decisions we make.  However, I run our meetings and officially announce any rulings we make.
• What was the turnout for this year’s online interest meetings?
  • We’re only halfway through our schedule of candidacy meetings, but so far have had great turnout. There are a ton if interested candidates.
• How did COVID-19 changed the election and campaigning process?
  • We’ve moved it all online.  Voting is always online anyway, so no changes there, and that’s the most important part.  All candidacy forms are online, but again, that’s normal.  Our candidacy meetings have all been online, which is a change from normal, but that probably helped accessibility more than it hurt it.  Campaigning is the biggest change, since we are having no in-person campaigning.  We made that decision out of fairness for the more students than normal who are living off campus, many of whom are living in different states and can’t even get to campus.  There’s still plenty of campaigning to be done online, so focusing on social media should still generate excitement for candidates to get out the vote.
• What improvements does the EDC hope to make this year?
  • We hope to improve our coordination with the rest of Student Government to advertise elections and get the word out about candidacy meetings.  I’ve been happy with our progress so far in that respect, although we could always improve.
• What is the expected voter turnout, and how is that affected by COVID-19?
  • It’s really hard to anticipate what the turnout will be since COVID-19 means that so many students are distant from campus. We’re in uncharted territory just like everyone else. (Since this interview, though, the top candidate had received almost 300 votes, which is not bad considering the circumstances.)
• What is the importance of voting in Student Government elections?
  • This is how students get a say in how things are done at Mason.  Pay attention during campaign season and keep an eye out for candidates who support things you agree with.  The fall elections are especially important since the seats are reserved for freshmen and transfer students.  Freshman could serve for years in Student Senate if they get elected now, and more time in office means more time to change things.
• Where and when can students find out about the election results?
  • Election results will be posted on the GMUSG website on Thursday, October 1^st by 12:00 PM.  They will also be emailed directly to all candidates.  The first Student Senate meeting with the newly elected senators will be at 4:30 PM that same day.