Updated: April 13, 2025, at 8:51 p.m.
Students elected junior Ethan Lynne as the Student Government Association’s next president on Saturday afternoon, pulling in 791 votes ahead of junior Emily-Anne Santiago.
Lynne, a political communication student and current SGA vice president, received 60.53 percent of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting, according to the Joint Election Commission’s unverified election results. In his presidential campaign, Lynne pledged to conduct a third-party investigation into GW’s response to free speech on campus over the past three years and create a student advisory board to provide input to the Student Health Center.
About 100 community members gathered in the University Student Center Amphitheater Saturday at 2 p.m. to hear the JEC announce the election results, including University President Ellen Granberg.
“This is a dream come true,” Lynne said. “I love GW so much. The past three years have been amazing but I couldn’t have done this without my team. They’re the best, most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
SGA Senate Pro Tempore Liz Stoddard prevailed in the vice presidential race, securing 62.39 percent of the votes and defeating second place candidate SGA Sen. Claire Avalos (CCAS-U), per the unverified election results.
“I am so incredibly grateful that the students here thought that I was fit enough for the job, and I will do everything I can to make sure that I follow through,” Stoddard said.
Stoddard pledged to expand dining options available on GWorld and reform the GW Facilities FixIt protocol to require officials to schedule a time slot for when they will arrive at a student’s residence.
Santiago, who received 677 votes for the presidency, said she had fun with her campaign staff and has other “good things” planned for her senior year. She said students who voted for her should make voting a “lifetime habit” by continuing to vote in campus, local and national elections.
“Ethan was a good candidate, we’re two very similar candidates with very similar platforms,” Santiago said. “And I’m just glad it was a close-ish race.”
Avalos, who clinched 33.4 percent of votes for the vice presidency, pledged to increase funding for multicultural student organizations, expand free speech protections for students and push officials to remove the permanent fences they installed around University Yard following last spring’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
“I want them to know that the student government is in really good hands,” Avalos said. “I think Liz and Ethan will work well together, and they have a lot of great ideas for the student body.”
Granberg sat in the front row of the amphitheater, after not attending last year’s results. She said her relationship with the SGA is a “real partnership” and she looks forward to meeting with Lynne and Stoddard at their monthly meetings with Dean of Students Colette Coleman where they work to “identify” issues that affect students.
“I am so impressed by how hard they work on behalf of the students and how much the SGA Senate does,” Granberg said. “So when I knew this was going on today, I thought I’d really love to come and be able to congratulate the winners.”
Presidential candidate Dan Saleem came in third place, receiving 4.95 percent of the vote with 98 total votes. Saleem did not attend the election results.
Saleem suspended his campaign at the SGA debate Tuesday, citing “virtual and in-person attacks” of his team throughout the campaign season. The announcement came hours after an anonymous letter posted to the Students Against Sexual Assault Instagram account accused Saleem of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Saleem later clarified on his Instagram that he would not be withdrawing from the race despite suspending his campaign and still appeared on the official election ballot.
Voter turnout in the SGA elections dropped this cycle with only 2,510 students casting ballots compared to 3,153 students last year.
Adballa Hassan, a junior who launched a write-in campaign last week, received 57 votes, placing him in fifth place behind Rat, a write-in candidate.
About 57 percent of students voted in favor of a referendum to amend the SGA constitution to consolidate language for clarity and reform regulations for the Student Court by adding term limits and a required SGA Senate confirmation for any changes to Student Court bylaws.
Sophia Leinenkugel, Dhyana Holla and Sofio Kipiani were elected to the three Elliott School undergraduate senate seats, the senate’s most competitive race this year as six students vied for the open positions.
Students elected Sophie Munson, Aicha Sy, Avery Boyd, Jonesy Strell, Cheydon Naleimaile-Evangelista, Beatriz Schermann Salim, Justin Liu and Jose Dalmau to Columbian College of Arts & Sciences undergraduate seats, the largest senator race this year with 10 students gunning for the eight open seats.
Students elected sophomores Alison Gendrolis and Joseph Migliorisi to the School of Business undergraduate seats. Jacob Gloc won the third GWSB undergraduate seat with two write-in votes, coming eleven votes behind “Rat” — another write-in seen in both the vice presidential and presidential races.
The GW Rat earned a total of 105 write-in votes in the official SGA election after a group of students handed out stickers saying “VOTE RAT” throughout the campaign period. The Rat campaign trended for about a week ahead of the election on Fizz — an anonymous social media site — encouraging students to vote for “rat” instead of a registered candidates.
Twelve other students rode write-in votes to SGA Senate victories.
Graduate students Tambudzai Gundani, Dyson Tino and Lakshana Ananthakrishnan Prabhakar won graduate senate seats for CCAS, GWSB and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, respectively.
Students elected graduate students Mershad Fahim Devin and Meagan Mitchell by write-in votes to two of the three School of Medicine and Health Sciences graduate senator seats, leaving one seat vacant.
Students elected Levi Todd to the College of Professional Studies graduate seat and Tabitha Northrup to the School of Nursing graduate senator seat.
Students elected Brian Martinez-Orellana to the SEAS undergraduate seat, Devin Tennant to the Milken Institute School of Public Health undergraduate senate seat and Peter Patsios to the SON undergraduate seat.
Omer Turkomer and Marcella Rubini — two Student Bar Association senators, were elected by students to the GW Law graduate seats along with Henrietta Denise Ssettimba.
Thirteen vacant SGA Senate seats remain for graduate seats in CCAS, ESIA, SEAS, MHS, MISPH, the Graduate School of Education and Human Development and the CPS following last week’s election. The SGA Government and Nominations Committee will be in charge of filling the vacancies during the term.
In ranked-choice voting, students rank candidates in preferred order. The JEC eliminates candidates with the fewest first-choice votes from the first round of tallying the results. The JEC eliminates candidates with the fewest votes in each round in descending order of second- and third-choice votes until one candidate reaches 50 percent of the vote, winning the election.
Rory Quealy, Ella Mitchell, Jenna Lee and Rachel Moon contributed reporting.
This post has been updated to include the following:
This post has been updated to include additional results from the SGA Senate races.
