Thursday, March 26, Class of 2027 President Nico Giro-Martin ’27 and Undersecretary for Health and Safety and former Sen. Sophie Kennedy ’27 won the College of William and Mary’s Student Assembly student body presidential election. The ticket was initially challenged by Phillip Matijevic ’27 and Isabel Torres ’27, who withdrew from the election and left the Giro-Martin-Kennedy candidacy unopposed.
Total turnout for the election was reported as 1,667 votes for the presidential election and 1,670 votes for the referendums. 2,647 students voted in last year’s election, and 3,607 the year prior.
Giro-Martin expressed excitement about the election results and reiterated his preparedness to work for the student body.
“It feels great to be seen by everyone and for everyone to see the work that we want to do,” he said.
Kennedy characterized their campaign as a positive experience in hearing from students, something they say they plan to continue doing during their tenure.
“We want to be as accessible as possible,” she said. “We want to keep that door open for students, so that we can make sure that Student Assembly is working for them.”
Giro-Martin said he hopes to continue his work on pedestrian safety as student body president at the College.
Kennedy said she hopes to continue health and safety initiatives for students, such as the annual Safety and Accessibility Walk, an advocacy event that seeks to find accessibility pitfalls around campus. She also mentioned the Take Back the Night event, which raises awareness for sexual violence, as something the pair hopes to continue.
Referendum Results
Students at the College also overwhelmingly approved two referendum questions. The first question calls on the College to cancel its contract with Flock, an AI-powered automatic license plate reader that operates on campus. 88.6% of students voted in favor of the College ending its relationship with Flock surveillance, while 7% of students voted against and 4.4% of students abstained.
“[Flock] surveillance data is uploaded to Flock’s cloud system, and participating agencies can search and share this database across jurisdictions,” the Flock referendum explanation reads. “Through a series of intentional and unintentional data privacy breaches, Flock has repeatedly shown itself to be an unreliable and unethical company.”
The Flock referendum question also calls on College administrators to publicly retract and apologize for their accused misleading statements on Flock and its surveillance on members of the campus community.
Read The Flat Hat’s reporting on campus Flock cameras here.
Students at the College approved a second referendum question that calls on the College to create a “Firewall For Freedom” in protecting the right to free expression against interference from federal civil immigration enforcement and the Trump administration. 87% of students voted in favor of this referendum, while 5% of students voted no and 8% of students abstained.
“We are asking for William & Mary to fight to protect our rights – and refuse to collaborate in the government’s attacks on our campus,” the Firewall For Freedom referendum reads.
Kennedy did not give a direct answer on whether she supports the Flock referendum, but said she will try her best to continue learning about the issue.
“I think that Flock cameras are something that I have to continue to educate myself on,” she said. “As of now, I’m not sure that I have all of the information on it.”
On the other hand, Kennedy said that she firmly supports the Firewall For Freedom referendum.
“As for Firewall for Freedom, when I read it, I thought it looked great in my personal opinion,” she said. “Keeping students safe is absolutely a priority. That is something that we are absolutely going to work with the administration on.”
Giro-Martin said that he hopes to take these referendum results to College administrators, so that they can best see how to accommodate the wishes of students.
“I really want to take [these results] and work with our Associate Vice President of Public Safety, Cliff Everton [‘96], and the rest of the [College] administration to understand what the administration can do to cater to students’ needs and students’ wants,” he said.
Kennedy said she believes student concerns about the increasing proliferation of AI-surveillance around campus are necessary questions to be asking.
“These concerns that students are bringing up are completely valid,” she said. “We’re at a time where we don’t know where our data is going. Getting those answers is really important.”
When asked about the upcoming ZeroEyes surveillance referendum, Giro-Martin said that he is also looking forward to working with College administrators on this issue.
“[The ZeroEyes] referendum is something I voted yes for, and I’m very excited [for it] to happen in two weeks, where we can educate the public and get conversations started with Cliff Everton and Student Assembly,” he said.
Class Presidential Elections
Former Sen. Cheryl Dao ’27 won an uncontested bid to become the new class of 2027 President, and incumbent class of 2029 President Daria Lesmerises ’29 won her bid for re-election, also uncontested.
Incumbent class of 2028 President Devaughn Henry ’28 won his re-election bid. Henry was challenged by Jackson Webb ’28 and Benjamin Fredericks ’28, and the election went to a ranked-choice runoff after no candidate received the required 50% minimum to get elected. On the second ballot, Fredericks was eliminated, and Henry won with 55% percent of the vote to Webb’s 45%.
Class Senate Elections
Incumbents Quinn Clancey ’27, Mayer Tawfik ’27 and Tyson Liverman ’27 all won their respective bids for re-election. Terrence McDuffie ’27 won the seat vacated by Dao, while Phillip Matijevic ’27 did not receive enough votes to become a senator.
Incumbents Nina Argel ’28 and Mackenna Wyckoff ’28 won re-election, while Maddie Blake ’28 and Nathan Yang ’28 were newly elected to the senate. This race remained uncontested.
Incumbents Riya Budhrani ‘29, Neha Baskar ’29 and Jenny Wang ’29 all won re-election. This race also remained uncontested, as there were four available seats and only three students in the running.
