Mason Wenzel and Katie Mastel walked away as winners of the student body election Thursday night, garnering 89.6 percent of all votes. The duo will be the 2017-18 North Dakota State student body president and vice president, respectively.

Although being the sole ticket on the ballot, they won the student body election with 1,017 votes in their favor.

“I’m happy that we get to move into actually getting to work,” Wenzel said shortly after the announcement he won, speaking in reference to the lack of campaigning their future holds. “We plan on getting to work tomorrow.”

The future for Wenzel and Mastel focuses on covering all aspects of their three-pillared platform and getting as much done as efficiently as possible.

Wenzel said he was very happy to have won the election, and stated he planned to take the night off to relax. Mastel shared the positive sentiment and said she was happy to have had the experience.

“I’m really excited to start working with the senators right away,” Mastel said.

Mastel is focused on allowing the senators to take charge of their own projects which they deem important, in addition to accomplishing every aspect of the platform the duo ran on.

“I feel great right now … I’m excited to get started,” Mastel said. She added she was going to send out emails to plan “meeting upon meetings” for the next week.

Wenzel and Mastel have plans for the upcoming year, such as changing the general education requirements to use free online textbooks as their course materials, starting programs like coffee after class and including scantrons in student fees.

The duo plans to hit the ground running and would like to reach out to determined and passionate individuals to join their team and further their efforts.

Senate seats settled

A total of 24 senatorial candidates were elected this year, of which 10 were newly elected and 14 were re-elected.

New senators include: Jerrod MacDonald and Jamal Omar from the College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources; Elijah Gill and Fatima Shittu from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Ashley Honl from the College of Business; Ben Miller from the College of Engineering; Mdfaisal Kabir from Graduate Studies; Alyssa Emmons from the College of Human Development and Education; Courtney Hagen from the College of Health Professions; and Brady Jochim from the College of Science and Math.

Seven elected candidates (Omar, Gill, Shittu, Miller, Kabir, Hagen and Jochim) were elected with fewer than 20 votes cast in their name.