The unofficial results of the Student Government Spring Elections are in, and some of the candidates aren’t happy.
Presidential candidate LaTasha Lee has confirmed that she will be contesting the unofficial election results that were posted on Thursday, Feb. 21.
The unofficial winner of the position of SG president is Ella Tepper, along with vice president running mate Jaclyn Broudy.
“Biomedical students feel disenfranchised that approximately half of their medical student population who were very active were unable to vote in a timely fashion,” Lee said, citing that as the reason for her contestation of the unofficial results. “They were not permitted the opportunity to vote [until] 17 hours after the voting opened.”
Associate Dean of Students Terry Mena told the UP in an email that 129 medical students at the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine had been left off of the eligible voter list at the beginning of the voting period, at 12:00 a.m. on Feb. 19.
These students were added to the eligible voter’s list by 4:30 p.m. the same day and were notified by email of this, according to Mena.
“I do not believe the College of Medicine students were disenfranchised in the FAU SG elections,” Mena wrote. “I also want to clarify that the medical students and biomedical students are in two separate academic programs within the College of Medicine. I did not receive any reports from the biomedical students that they were unable to cast their votes.”
According to the Elections Board, Tepper and Broudy earned 7,094 points based on the new instant runoff voting system. Their tally was 43 points higher than their nearest competitor team, Pedro Amirato for president and Patrick Callahan for VP. Lee and VP candidate Kori Padron came in third while presidential candiate Addison Hosner and VP Conrad Berthold came in last.
Because the results were so close — Lee and her running mate Kori Padron with 57 votes less than Tepper and Broudy — Lee plans to challenge the results.
Tepper could not be reached for comment as of press time.
“We’re obviously extremely excited,” Broudy said. “We worked really hard campaigning and obviously advocating for students is what we based our whole campaign off of.”
“If that’s what the students want, that’s what the students want and that’s not a problem,” Hosner said about the results. “I congratulate them, unofficial, official, whatever — it works for them.”
“You run, you want to win,” Amirato said. “The unofficial results right now say that we haven’t won. But I also would like to see a more detailed list of how many first, second, third, and fourth place votes everybody received.”
The two other presidential candidates, Amirato and Hosner, declined to comment on if they plan to contest the results.
Elections Board Chair Michael Brown confirmed that there were suspicions of possible contestations of the results at the Elections Board meeting on Feb. 21. According to Brown, the candidates had 24 hours to challenge the unofficial results after they were posted at 5 p.m. on Friday Feb. 22. The board will take the challenges into consideration on Monday Feb. 25 at 1:30 p.m. before revealing the official results
“Our next step is to wait for possible contestations,” said Brown. “We will go from there and make decisions. Should this be an issue, we will have enough background to make a decision.”
Lee said she filed six contestations. In addition to the above-stated voting issues with medical students, Lee claimed she filed a contestation on unofficial vice president-elect Jaclyn Broudy, who received a police citation on Feb. 8 for possession of alcohol under the age of 21.
According to Regulation 4.006 of the Student Government Constitution, SG officers (candidates or otherwise) must be free of Student Code of Conduct violations and the Student Code of Conduct (in Regulation 4.007) lists underage drinking of alcohol as a violation.
The police report regarding Broudy states that she was “holding a clear cup of a mixed vodka drink in her right hand.”
Broudy said that’s not how the incident happened. “There are no charges, there are no warrants, there are no arrests so as far as a contestation is concerned on those grounds,” she said. “There’s no grounds to stand on because there have been no charges.”
Lee said she texted a screenshot of the Palm Beach County Clerk’s website with Broudy’s record to Mena at 10 a.m. on Feb. 22, five hours before Broudy said she informed Mena of her citation.
Mena did not respond as of press time.
In the poll for the Boca campus governor’s seat, graduate student Charles Berichi has won over eight other opponents, with 9,049 points.
“Well, it’s very exciting, and I’m really happy we had a great voter turnout,” Berichi said. “It seems like we’re getting more and more students to vote each year.”
For campus governor of the MacArthur in Jupiter, economics and biology major Kadeem Ricketts won after running unopposed.
For Broward campus governor, senior ESE major Johannes Cordero has defeated his only opponent, Kristina Alper, in the election, 165 to 147 points.
Neither Ricketts or Cordero responded as of press time.
[Regina Kaza and Lulu Ramadan contributed reporting to this story.]
[A previous version of this article said Patrick Callahan was Addison Hosner’s vice presidential candidate, not Conrad Berthold.]
