ASG Undecided on Election

By Matthew Rupel

After a dramatic campaign season littered with violations and infractions from each candidate, the winners of the elections for next year's president and vice president remains up in the air.

Although the election was held on Tuesday, the results were not able to be decided after a judicial board determined by a 3-2 vote the disqualification of Robert Leupp and Alex Solaguinto. Their disqualification came after a third violation was levied against their campaign, an automatic disqualification by the ASG code.

With the current vote tally, Jenna Sasso and Matt Macdonald stood within one percent Leupp, which would have demanded a runoff if the ticket was not disqualified, and over 20 percent over the other candidates, enough to win the election according to ASG code. Someone brought up, though, that reallocation of the disqualified votes could possibly change the results, according to Vice President Lindsay Gray.

That means that a  reelection could be necessary. Gray will meet with Jeanne Rosenberg, vice provost of student life, today to further discuss options. 

"I think that it's disappointing that it came to this," said Gray, who heads the election committee. "I wanted it to be able to come to a vote," she said. 

Leupp and Solaguinto felt very differently about the fairness of the elections process. Leupp said that Gray ran an inconsistent system that punished his campaign while letting other candidates slide for their mistakes. 

Sasso and Macdonald did not want to say how the violations system worked, since they said that they wanted to run their campaign separate from the petty violations.

Leupp's ticket was disqualified from a violation that occurred on elections day when a friend was taking a laptop through Benson and encouraging votes. The incident was innocent according to Leupp and Solaguinto, but Gray said that the incident was handled in a way that indicated a coordinated campaign plan, which is illegal in Benson. Early this morning, Gray sent out an email to the student body that indicated the disqualification and that further reviews would need to be taken in order to determine a winner of the election.