Landslide victory for Fisher, results for SFC member race in question

In a landslide victory, students elected Hannah Fisher and her running mate Kyle Cady as ASPSU president and vice president, along with a majority of their “Bridge the Gap” slate.

Fisher and Cady defeated “Empowerment” presidential and vice presidential candidates Christian Aniciete and Karla Hernandez with more than twice as many votes: 932 to 455. It was the largest margin of victory for that race in at least three years. Aimeera Flint, a member of Bridge the Gap, won the race for SFC chair, beating out Rylee Richardson from the Empowerment slate with 748 votes to 556.

A total of 1,447 students voted in the online-only elections, 462 less than last year. The voter turnout was the lowest in five years.

As of press time it was not clear which six of the eight candidates were elected to the Student Fee Committee, which will distribute over $12 million in student fees to student groups such as the Vanguard next year.

Questioned results

Yesterday, the elections board confirmed six candidates to the SFC: Waddah Sofan, Khadija Fai, Patricia Binder, Matt Ellis, Anna Malenkovich and Yazmin Estevez. Kit Seulean and Petter Dahlgren were not elected, according to the board.

The elections board used instant run-off voting to record votes for the SFC candidates, which is prohibited under the ASPSU constitution. If instant run-off voting had not been used, Dahgren would have been elected to the SFC instead of Estevez, according to the Vanguard‘s analysis of raw voting data from the elections. All other results would stay the same.

Instant run-off voting weighs votes according to the voter’s preferences, rather than having them choose only one candidate. In this instance, voters ranked six of the eight SFC candidates in the order they preferred. Candidates secured higher rankings for every higher preference vote they received.

Kyle Curtis, elections board chair, said the board realized that the ballot was set up for instant run-off before voting started on April 20. He said he sent an e-mail to John Brown, the ASPSU webmaster who created the online voting survey and OIT, which calculates the results, that asked them to change the ballot, but they could not in time.

“It was inadvertent, it should not have happened and we tried to catch it and change it but it never got changed,” he said. He said the ballot portion for SFC positions was flawed because it used instant run-off.

The ASPSU constitution does allow instant run-off voting, but only for the president/vice president and the SFC chair elections.

Dahlgren said that he felt he had a lot of support on campus and would like to get elected.

Curtis said that he took an initial statistical sample of voting data after the Vanguard informed him of the inconsistency, which showed discrepancies with the results that were announced. The elections board will meet on Wednesday to discuss the situation.

Based on what the Vanguard found, Dahlgren received the second most votes of all SFC candidates. When the election board validated candidates, he was listed in seventh place out of eight candidates.

A new leader

As the results were announced at noon in the South Park Blocks, candidates and supporters lined up, some cheering as names were called, while others consoled those who were defeated.

Fisher said that an attention to detail and successfully assembling a strong team contributed most to her victory. “We worked our butts off,” she said.

All 16 candidates running for the 22-seat student senate were voted in, as they only needed one vote necessary to be elected. Amendments to the ASPSU constitution also passed. The amendments were mostly minor wording changes and reordering of sections, but one amendment moved ASPSU elections to the fifth week of spring term next year.

Voting for the elections ended on Saturday. On Monday morning, two elections board members and ASPSU adviser Natalee Webb received the results from OIT. The board members officially voted in the results when they were announced at noon. Webb did not return calls for comment Monday afternoon.

After the results were announced, Aniciete walked to Fisher and Cady to give both of them conciliatory handshakes.

“I’m happy for them,” Aniciete said.

Aniciete said he wants to continue to be involved and to help students at PSU in whatever way he can. “I’m going to move forward,” he said.

Elected SFC member Waddah Sofan said now that the elections are over the real job begins.

“Now is when the responsibilities start,” he said.