The “REAL” party swept all five seats on the undergraduate Student Association’s 2026-27 e-board in a year that saw the highest voter turnout for SA e-board elections.
This year’s race of 22 candidates had 4,937 voters — a record turnout according to SA President Aisha Adam.
“It signals that students care about what goes on in-campus. They care about their leadership,” Adam said. “I think that everyone is better off when students vote.”
Jack Koscinski secured 1,357 votes for the presidency, leading his closest — Charlene Okine — by 442 votes. Koscinski serves as this year’s treasurer.
Na’Dia Carter for vice president for advocacy secured 1,477 votes, leading runner-up Brittiny Ando by 234 votes. Pranavan Balachandran for vice president for clubs took 1,370 votes, a 237-point gap from his closest opponent Aidan Thomas.
William Dong — this year’s vice president for clubs — will take over the vice president for events role with 1,594 votes. Runner-up Hassan Fousseini trailed Dong by 127 votes.
Laron Fomby, the treasurer candidate, snagged 1,564 votes, with runner-up Adrian Espinal behind by 364 votes.
The campaign weeks were “brutal” but the new e-board is ready to get back to work, Koscinski said.
“We did a lot of good this year,” Koscinski said. “We’re going to do a lot of good next year as well.”
The party championed the idea of making SA “more human,” proposing a staff directory, public town halls and financial transparency. They advocated for SA to take more of a public stance in current issues, including the actions of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement where most recently, a UB student was detained for unknown reasons.
The group also planned to introduce smaller events that catered to specific interests alongside maintaining the large, popular events of Fest and Homecoming Carnival.
Campaign promises will be fulfilled right when the party gets into the office, Fomby said. First priorities are focused on financial transparency: publication of monthly expenditures on social media accounts, office hours and website modernization.
Fomby promised to meet with every club leader three times a semester.
“I’m glad that there’s finally an e-board that is going to lead with heart and compassion,” Fomby said. “We’re going to lead like a student government and less like a student corporation. That’s what’s important.”
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
