Thursday, Nov. 15, Cody Mills ’20, JonDavid Nichols ’20, and Zie Medrano ’20 won the Class of 2020 Student Assembly special election revote. SA initially held a special election Friday, Nov. 2, in response to the resignation of Sen. Abhi Chadha ’20, Sen. Clare DaBaldo ’20 and Sen. Sarah MacPhee ’20, who are unable to remain in SA as they will be studying abroad next semester.
After the initial special election, the Review Board determined that a revote was necessary due to technical difficulties that occurred during the special election. The Review Board held their first hearing in over a decade Sunday, Nov. 11, to determine the constitutionality of provisional ballots that were counted Nov. 2 as well as the effects of technical difficulties on the election outcome.
In an email sent out to the 2020 student body, Class of 2020 President Kelsey Vita ’20 said that many students had difficulty accessing their ballot on TribeLink for the special election. At the Nov. 6 meeting of the SA senate, Vita informed her fellow senators that the students who faced the most difficulty accessing their ballots were students who switched their social class to 2020.
Mills, Nichols and Medrano were also elected during the Nov. 2 election. However, turnout dropped after the initial election. The 421 students who participated in the Nov. 15 election make up 43.81 percent of students who voted Nov. 2. A total of 961 students voted Nov. 2.
“I felt excited, proud, and extremely relieved!” Nichols said in a written statement. “Having to go through the election process a second time was extremely nerve-racking and all day I was uncertain of what the outcome would be. I wasn’t sure how voter turnout would be affected or what the results would be since the first election was so close! But I was truly so excited and honored to be elected again!”
Out of the 421 students who voted, Mills received 189 votes for a total of 18.36 percent, Nichols received 172 votes for a total of 16.71 percent of the vote and Medrano received 153 votes for a total of 14.86 percent of the vote.
“I was definitely [really] excited about the fact that even after a second round of voting I got chosen and I’m also pretty happy to know that SA did a revote to ensure everyone who wanted to vote could vote,” Mills said in a written statement. “I’m still excited about the same things I ran on and I’ve already been talking with different members of SA about ways to pass a bill that establishes a celebration of LGBTQ mental health awareness week so I’m hoping I can show people that I really meant what I said about hoping to fight for these kinds of consciousness raising activities and events on our campus that are formally recognized.”
Angela Tiangco ’20 received 138 votes for a total of 13.41 percent of the vote. Caroline Garmen ’20 received 129 votes for a total of 12.53 percent of the vote. Nick Thomas ’20 received 88 votes for a total of 8.55 percent of the vote. Alicia Draper ’20 received 81 votes for a total of 7.87 percent of the vote. Liz Holmes ’20 received 45 votes for a total of 4.37 percent of the vote. Jaret Anderson ’20 received 34 votes for a total of 3.3 percent of the vote. Maddie Talnagi ’20 dropped out of the race before election night.
For the remainder of the semester, Chadha, DaBaldo and MacPhee will help the new senators’ transition. SA plans to revise its code in response to the three resignations but wanted to wait until the Class of 2020 had its new representing senators. SA President Brendan Boylan ’19 said that the three new senators will be inaugurated Tuesday, Nov. 27 during the weekly senate meeting.
“I was honestly so relieved at the news [of my re-election],” Medrano said in a written statement. “I know my margin of victory was slim the first time, and I’m extremely grateful to the class of 2020 for this opportunity to represent our interests.
– Flat Hat Editor-in-Chief Sarah Smith also contributed to this report.