SGA Election Coverage 2007: President, VP races go to run-off

After three days of voting the results of the SGA undergraduate elections were announced on Wednesday, April 11. The positions of undergraduate student body president and executive vice president remain unfilled for next year pending a runoff election between the top two-vote getters in each race, due to no candidate receiving the majority vote required to win.

The presidential runoff will face off top vote-getter Mark Youngblood, who received 1792 votes, against Anu Parvatiyar, who received 1117 votes, holding off Alex Wang, who received 1032 votes. In the vice presidential runoff, Matt Peeples, leading vote-getter with 1490 votes, will be vying against George Ray, who received 1226 votes. Kyle Dreyer received the remaining 1088 votes.

The polls closed at 4 p.m. Wednesday, and Will Welch, elections committee chair and fourth-year International Affairs major, took the stage at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Center Commons stage to read the results before the crowd of students that filled the surrounding area to hear the announcement.

"The voter turnout was up by 900 over last year," Welch said. "The credit for that really goes to the candidates for getting people to come out and vote for them. I was really pleased with what we had this year and I think it's a good starting point for higher turnout in future years."

"We're very excited about the turnout," Youngblood said. "Having over 4,000 votes is huge. We want to make sure there's an equally large turnout next week and we'll be doing everything we can to make that happen."

Voting in the runoff election will begin on Monday, April 16, and the results will be announced on Wednesday, April 18, giving the runoff candidates one additional week to make their case to the undergraduate student body about why they should get their votes. The runoff results will once again be announced at the Student Center Commons stage at 5:30 p.m. on the final day of voting.

According to Welch, the runoff candidates will be able to continue campaigning by leaving up their old signs and spending an additional $50 after having a spending limit of $250 during the initial campaign. But having to go through another week of campaigning is bittersweet news for the runoff candidates.

"Campaigning has been hectic, but at the same time it's really fun," Parvatiyar said. "You learn a lot, and it's fun to get out and see what people have to say. It's a grueling process though, not so much because of the time commitment, but because you have to spend every minute running around. I don't think any of the candidates ever want a runoff because we've already been campaigning for two and a half weeks, but we'll just keep working hard."

With four presidential candidates and three vice presidential candidates, a lack of a front-runner and the requirement to win a majority of the vote makes runoffs very common.

Three of the previous four presidential elections required runoffs to determine a winner.

"There were four very well qualified candidates and I think all of us were expecting to go to a runoff. Most students just think whoever wins the election wins, but obviously that's not the process," Youngblood said.

"I thought there would be a runoff but I didn't know that I would be making it back. I am very excited to come this far, but I've got a lot of work to do in the next week," Parvatiyar said.

The runoff came as no surprise to the vice presidential candidates either.

"Anytime we have three people in a race and they're such great candidates we can expect it to happen," Ray said.

"There were three marvelous candidates. I would have liked for there not to have been a runoff but that's what I was expecting," Peeples said.

Candidates Alex Wang and Bob Worrall finished in third and fourth, respectively, in the voting for president, and Kyle Dreyer finished third in the vice presidential race.

"Both Mark and Anu are very qualified candidates and I feel safe with either of them at the helm. Honestly, two weeks of campaigning was very stressful, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience," Wang said.

Youngblood's leading vote total came in spite of allegations of a forged email that he successfully defended himself against before the elections committee. After the polls opened on Monday, Youngblood's campaign sent a mass email to thousands of undergraduate students on behalf of Youngblood's former football teammate, star wide receiver Calvin Johnson, expressing Johnson's support for Youngblood.

The forgery allegations arose because the majority of the emails were shown to have been sent from Youngblood's account with the return name and address changed to Johnson's and a temporary Gmail account created to appear to belong to him.

Youngblood said that he began sending the emails from the Gmail account but had to stop after only a couple of hundred because there is a daily limit for the number of emails that an external address may send to campus accounts.

As a result, his own personal account was used for the remaining recipients.

Youngblood was able to demonstrate that forgery was not committed because he had obtained Johnson's oral and written permission to send the emails through another former teammate, Andrew Smith.

According to the campaign violation defense that Youngblood submitted to the elections committee, Johnson permitted his name to be used on the basis that "it didn't require any work on his part" and "a fake return address was used so that he wouldn't receive the responses".

Johnson was unable to be reached for comment.