By: Eliana Morales and Kyla Wetmore
On Feb. 26, Student Association (SA) Senate called an emergency meeting to discuss issues with the SA election.
The deliberations were in response to a Feb. 19 glitch in the voting system, which prevented 59 students from receiving ballots. At the time, the SA Bylaws Committee did not know how many students were unable to vote due to the glitch. The committee decided to hold a revote for the social vice presidency due to the race being closely decided.
Dennis Negrón, vice president of Student Development, said that a statistician ran the numbers and found that there was only a .005% chance that a revote for the entire election would change the results. However, some senators, such as Heidi Burke, argued that it was an ethical issue and a matter of representing their constituents.
“For me, this has nothing to do with statistics,” Burke said. “This has nothing to do with the outcome. This has everything to do with representing ourselves as a democratic [body]. Democracy depends on a free, fair and competitive election.”
She mentioned Article I, section 5, number 2 of the Elections Manual, which states, “All decisions made by the SA Elections Management Task shall be final, unless overturned by a two-thirds majority vote of the SA Judiciary Council.”
Although the Bylaws Committee made a decision in accordance with the Elections Manual, it could be overturned.
“I would say that I will veto any action,” said Negrón. He said that the purpose of the meeting was for discussion, not to overturn the Bylaws Committee’s decision.
The possibility of a full student body revote was quickly eliminated.
“Are we saying that those people who chose not to vote the first time should get a chance to vote the second time?” Negrón said. “There is no fairness there.”
Among the other options discussed was sending official ballots to the 59 students who did not get to vote.
“I think opening up an opportunity to vote just for those 50-something [students] would strengthen their trust in Senate,” Senator Tata Tsikrai said.
Negrón made it clear once again that he would veto a decision involving an official revote. Regardless, Senator Arianne Milosavljevic suggested that Senate send a formal statement to students to clarify the situation.
Considering that the 59 students’ votes would not change the results and that a formal decision to revote would be vetoed, options began to narrow. After further debate about how to proceed, Senator Houston Beckworth moved to uphold the decision of the Bylaws Committee to not hold an official revote and, out of formality, send a ballot to the 59 students who were unable to vote.
Milosavljevic moved to amend the motion to include a formal statement to the student body explaining what occurred during the election. The amendment was seconded and approved. The amended motion passed with 13 yes votes and 10 no votes.
The three voting members of the Bylaws Committee were among the 10 who voted against the motion.
“We felt that the symbolic vote would send out mixed messages,” a committee member said. “But we’re okay with [sending] the statement.”
Burke voted against the motion because it retained the original election results.
“I am concerned,” Burke said. “Out of fear of a veto, we never even made a motion that got vetoed. We stopped before we even came close. Instead, we gave [the students] a symbol, but the problem is, the symbol doesn’t mean anything.”
Senator Andrew Cornelius, who represents mostly business majors, voted against the motion. He agreed that Senate should give a formal statement but disagreed with the symbolic vote because of how students could perceive it. He said if students view it as a real chance to vote without realizing the election has already been called, they might lose trust in Senate.
Senator Lukas Castillo, who represents mostly liberal arts, nursing and biology majors, voted in favor of the motion.
“It was a really tough decision, to be honest,” he said. “We’re trying our best to support all the students and make sure they are all represented.”
After the meeting, Beckworth, who made the motion for the symbolic ballots, reflected on a missed opportunity.
“It would have been valuable to at least move to redo the election…and have it vetoed by Dr. Negrón, to show that we are acting to our full extent,” he said. “Aside from that, I feel like we have done as much as we can do to address the issue.”
Negrón said he hopes students believe that Senate works with integrity and realize that the bylaws and election manual are documents Senate tries to follow faithfully.
“I think this [meeting] was an example of them trying to follow the letter and spirit of the law,” he said.
A wide consensus was that the bylaws need to be amended so a similar situation does not reoccur.
According to Negrón, the symbolic ballots were sent on the morning of Feb. 27, and students had until 5 p.m. to send their responses. Of the 59 students who were given ballots, only 8 cast votes.
For Naomi Ann Martinez, two students voted yes and six voted no. For Alejandro Robles, seven students voted yes and one voted no. For the 2026-2027 school year, Martinez remains the elected student body president and Robles the executive vice president, as announced on Feb. 19.
“Hearing that [the ballots were] more of a survey, rather than an actual ballot that’s going to be counted for or against one of the people running, is interesting,” Katherine Shivel, a freshman nursing major, said. “Even if it was only 59 students, those 59 students have an opinion that matters. I think it’s odd they would have voted towards something like that and give us the impression that it may have actually mattered.”
Malcolm Maynes, a freshman fine arts major, said that, while sending out ballots makes sense from a fairness standpoint, he does not believe it makes a difference because the results remain unchanged.
As required by the motion, the Bylaws Committee provided the following statement:
“On behalf of the SA Bylaws Committee, we would like to provide clarification regarding the recent social vice president election,” read the statement. “When the election results were released, the margin between the candidates for social vice president was extremely close. At the same time, it came to our attention that a number of students were unable to receive or submit their ballots due to a system glitch affecting those enrolled in arranged, online, or directed studies courses. Because the number of impacted students could have potentially influenced the outcome of the race, we, as the Bylaws Committee, were required to make a decision to ensure fairness and integrity in the election process.”
The statement continued, “After careful consideration, the committee voted to hold a student body revote for the social vice president position so that all eligible students would have a fair opportunity to participate and confidence in the final result. A revote for the presidential race was not pursued.
“In addition to the margin being large enough that the system issue would not have affected the outcome, sponsors exercised their authority to veto the option of reopening that race. We remain committed to transparency, fairness, and upholding the integrity of the Student Association election process.”
