Student Assembly Election Results Announced
On April 29, the Office of the Assemblies announced the results of the Student Assembly (SA) elections that were held on April 20 -27. The voting was conducted by OpaVote, an independent online voting firm. There were no reported election challenges.
Although no official voter turnout number was announced, there were 1,276 votes cast for SA President; when divided by 16,138 undergraduate students, only 7.9% of students voted in the election. This was much lower than the 3,292 (20.4% of Undergraduate Students) who voted in the December 2025 undergraduate referendum on the conduct system.
This election was the first in recent memory in which the Cornell Sun did not endorse candidates, but three progressive student organizations – Progressives at Cornell, Young Democratic Socialists of America, and Students for Justice in Palestine – publicly endorsed candidates in races other than President or Executive VP. Every single candidate endorsed by these three organizations won their election.
Campus-Wide Offices
All undergraduates were allowed to vote for most positions, except that the college-specific representatives were selected by voters in the specific college.
Eeshaan Chaudhuri and Hayden Watkins (photos from campaign website)
Three candidates ran for SA President. Eeshaan Chaudhuri ‘27 won with 605 first-round votes. Christian Flournoy ‘27, who is the current Executive Vice President, had 392 first-round votes and will become a Representative-at-Large next year. Zora deRham ‘27 had 279 first-round votes and did not get any role for next year. DeRham had served as President for the past two years, but was seen as too accommodating of Day Hall’s wishes. After deRham’s votes were transferred to others in the second round, only 31 votes separated Chaudhuri and Flournoy. Chaudhuri served as an undergraduate Representative on the University Assembly during 2025-26.
Hayden Watkins ‘28 is the new Executive Vice President with 643 votes. Kennedy Young ‘28, with 489 votes, will also serve as a Representative-at-Large. Watkins served as Vice President for Finance in 2025-26.
For First Generation College Students Representative, Saphira Agustin defeated Shabana Mahdis by 643 to 362.
For International Students Representative, Darin Lee defeated Tamar Tateladze by 540 to 406.
Two minority student representatives were elected from among three candidates. The votes were; Daniel Addoquaye: 460;
Jana Orief: 266; and Argenis Alas: 207.
For the Student Workers representative, Adriana Vink defeated Katherine Lamb: 625 to 440.
The rest of the seats were filled in uncontested elections. LGBTQIA+ Representative: Alexander Walters; Representative-at-Large: Ellie Porter, Jai Anand, Tyler Japal, and Myshay Causey; Students with Disabilities Representative: Strummer Dunn; Undergraduate Representatives to the University Assembly: Christian Tarala and Akshara Keshri; and Women’s Issues Representative: Saanya Agarwal.
Chaudhuri, Tarala, and Keshri will serve as three of the five voting undergraduate members on the University Assembly for 2026-27..
College Representatives
Undergraduates also voted for SA seats that represent their own college. Some of these races were contested.
The Brooks School of Public Policy Representative was decided by one vote. Yasmeen Masoud defeated Ashwina Bangari: 44 to 43.
For the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning Representative, Amelia Lyons defeated Levi Elenbaas: 48 to 35.
Three candidates ran for the two Engineering seats. Julian Kimball and Katherine Krishtopa defeated Patrick Yang by a 14-vote margin.
For the ILR Representative, Adam Sendelbach defeated Vidhit Singh: 156 to 97.
The college seats filled on an uncontested basis are: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Representatives: Lydia Blum and Tin Cho Aye; College of Arts and Sciences Representatives: Jeffrey Chung and Jocelyn Swavy; College of Human Ecology Representative: Abisola Ayoola; Dyson School of Business Representative: Arman Fard; and Nolan School of Hotel Administration Representative: Christian Tarala.
Voter Turnout
The 7.9% voter turnout for this spring was the lowest in many years. In order to boost voter turnout, the SA would schedule an undergraduate opinion referendum as a part of the spring SA election ballot. For example, a referendum on whether American Sign Language should satisfy the foreign language graduation requirement raised turnout to 29% in 2017. In 2019, the referendum question was “Should Cornell University adopt a policy of divestment from companies complicit in human rights violations in Yemen?” and the voter turnout was 40%. Of the ballots cast in 2019, 1,435 did not vote for President, and represented referendum voters who were not interested in the SA races.
