Student Association elections took place April 11 through April 15. Students voted for executive and senate positions, and changes to the SMSUSA constitution.

Student election results show that Ashanti Payne will remain student body president. This will be his second year in that position. Payne picked up 66 percent of the vote, while opponent Jeffrey Mayfield received 39 percent. Write-in candidates received six percent of the vote. This category received the highest amount of student participation with 481 votes cast.

Madison Lacey narrowed out Christopher Ross for the role of Vice President by just 1 percent. Lacey took 47 percent of the vote, with 7 percent going to write-in candidates. There were 472 votes cast for Vice President. Jonathan Heimer currently holds the position.

The position of Judicial Board Coordinator went to Christian Artiga who ran unopposed. He received 97 percent of the vote, with write-ins receiving the remaining three percent. Christopher Ross currently holds this position.

Tegen Thon will be the new Student Activities Coordinator after receiving 98 percent of the vote, replacing current SAC Coordinator Megan Johnson. Thon ran unopposed for the position.

Next year’s senators will be Victoria Brooks, Mackenzie Clouse, Krishna Ghimire, Makenzie Moes, Adan Munoz, David Shittu, Kade Vopava, and Steven Yang. Voters were instructed to vote for a maximum of eight senators. Just eight students ran.

Cole Scheller retains the Public Relations Coordinator position by picking up 56 percent of the vote. Opponent McKenzie Besel received 38 percent of the vote.

“[As Public Relations Coordinator] I hope to raise students’ awareness towards how the Student Association/Senate can benefit the student body as a whole.”

Scheller said that he wants to motivate students to become involved in university affairs and voice their opinions.

SMSU led MnSCU’s four-year universities in voter turnout in last spring’s election with 334 votes, or 15.48 percent of the student body. Voter turnout increased this year with 481 votes cast for president. However, some of these email ballots went to student’s Clutter folder instead of their inboxes, creating some miscommunication in the voting process.

“We lead MnSCU in [voter turnout],” Scheller said, “and hope to take more steps for students to vote and use the Senate as a liaison between the student and administration aspect of higher education.”