Appeals contesting the Senior Yell Leader election results and a controversial Class President candidate disqualification have been filed with the Student Government Association Judicial Court.
One case, Lanier vs. Douglas, was filed against election commissioner Emma Douglas by finance junior Gregory Lanier, who claims in the appeal that the Senior Yell Leader results “potentially need to be rectified.”
The appeal states that the number of votes counted in the first round of votes amounted to 11,217, which is unreasonable considering that students are allotted three votes for Senior Yell Leader and 11,369 votes were reportedly cast. The appeal suggests all three votes for Senior Yell Leader were not counted.
“Now logically, not everyone will use all three of their votes, however, the final vote tally should still be significantly higher than the 11,217 on the results,” states the appeal. “Because of the simple math involved, it is my belief that only people who ranked a candidate in the number 1 spot had their ballots counted. Their votes placed at #2 and #3 were irrelevant. This is contradictory to what should have happened – each voter’s ‘Top 3’ should count equally the same.”
The appeal states that in the first round of the Election Commission’s results, Steven Lanz received 3,860 votes, Kyle Cook received 2,747 votes, Zachary Lawrence received 1,898 votes and Ben Ritchie received 1,368 votes. Lanier calls for a speedy recount of these results in the appeal.
Lanier vs. Douglas will be heard at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Koldus 111.
The other case, O’Rourke vs. Douglas, was filed on behalf of Sam O’Rourke, the candidate for Class of 2018 President who was disqualified after winning a 78 percent majority.The appeal states that the candidate was disqualified because he did not turn in any expenditure reports.
“There was no expenditure report to turn in because there were no expenses made during the campaign,” reads the appeal.
The appeal states that not turning in an expense report falls under the category of minor campaign offenses and urges the Judicial Court to, “not let [O’Rourke’s] minor omission, result in a major lack of representation of [his] class.”
Due to O’Rourke’s disqualification, Beni Kashala, the candidate for Class of 2018 President who received 22 percent of the vote, is recognized by the Election Commission as the winner. O’Rourke v. Douglas will be heard at 7:10 p.m. Monday in Rudder 410.
The deadline to file an appeal with the Judicial Court pertaining to the 2015 Spring Election season is 7:05 p.m. Sunday.