Political communication junior Lizzie Shaw and psychology junior Nick St. Mary won the 2022 Student Government race for student body president and vice president Monday in a close race. Shaw will be the first female LSU SG president in 15 years as only about 8% of student body presidents have been women. 

Shaw and St. Mary will be inaugurated on April 19.  

“I want to run a good administration. I want the best for the students and I’m not letting anything get in the way of it,” Shaw said. 

Running under the EVOLVE ticket, Shaw and St. Mary won the race by 34 votes in the third round of voting against the Scott-Rovere ticket, headed by political science juniors Devin Scott and Isabella Rovere. 

“Even if they didn’t support us, that means nothing to us. We’re here to represent all students so we’re ready to get the work done,” St. Mary said. “We want to have their support, obviously, so we want to prove to them that we’re the right fit for the job.” 

The EVOLVE ticket also won 22 Senate seats and 30 College Council seats. Scott-Rovere won 18 senate seats and 10 College Council seats. RISE won 11 senate seats. No other SG candidates ran under the FAFO ticket.

The election brought in a total of 7,196 votes, a 38% increase from the 2021 spring election that brought in 5,207 votes. Not all students completely filled out the ranking, which is why there were fewer total votes by the third round.

The 2022 spring election was the third SG election to use the ranked-choice voting system, which was first implemented in spring 2021. Ranked-choice voting allows runoffs to be simulated according to voters’ preferences on the ballot instead of having students vote multiple times in runoff elections. 

The first round of voting saw the EVOLVE and Scott-Rovere ticket in a close race while the other two tickets, RISE and F*** Around and Find Out, trailing significantly. 

The RISE ticket, headed by mechanical engineering junior Colin Raby and broadcast journalism sophomore Georgia Peck, was eliminated in the first round of voting with 437 votes. FAFO, headed by architecture senior Harris Quadir, was eliminated in the second round of voting with 575 votes. 

EVOLVE won against Scott-Revere by a mere 34 votes.

SG voter turnout has been historically low, and runoff elections typically result in even fewer students voting, one of the reasons for implementing ranked-choice voting. 

Shaw and St. Mary said that one of the main things they will be working toward will be greater transparency within SG and LSU administration. They want to have all of SG’s activities documented and made readily available on their website, one of their first priorities when their term begins this summer.

At a SG minority debate, St. Mary said his campaign’s policy is working with the Programming, Support & Initiatives Fee to change the bylaws so that minority organizations can have more funding to host events.

Shaw said there are not enough efforts being made to recruit minority organizations to serve in SG, especially Hispanic students. 

“That’s the thing that I really love as far as Latinx representation — is to work with student organizations and groups on campus to see if we can get Latinx representation in the executive branch,” Shaw said.

St. Mary also said the divisiveness among branches is a key issue that affects the efficiency of SG.

“It’s very hard to get three different branches all on one page, which is something that we have really tried to implement in our campaign,” St. Mary said. “One of our key values is collaboration, we want to make sure we are collaborating with not only our staff but the student body as a whole.”

Shaw expressed interest in putting into place the FAFO ticket’s idea of having report cards for administration to determine which administrators are best to work with. 

Shaw announced her campaign for student body president alongside St. Mary in an Instagram post on Nov. 7. She said the few female presidents SG has seen motivated her to run. 

“With campus culture shifting rapidly year to year, it’s time for a strong female voice to be added to the administration for female student wants and needs in addition to that of the entire student body,” Shaw said.

St. Mary, who previously served as presidential executive assistant in SG, said he was asked to run alongside Shaw while he was still in his hometown working his summer job stocking shelves at Albertsons.

A member of SG as well as LSU Ambassadors, St. Mary said he wanted to give back to the same community that supported him.

“Being a part of a campaign that seeks to put women’s voices on top is something that’s really important to me,” St. Mary said.