Haley Heath defeated incumbent Maximiliano Carranza for SGA executive president during an SGA election process marred with accusations of candidate irregularities.
“I’m very excited about the opportunity to represent the student body,” Heath said. “I’m extremely grateful for the support I had.”
Heath defeated Carranza 1,302 to 964. The results were announced Wednesday afternoon.
Sophomore Class Vice President Drew Aylesworth defeated Junior Class Sen. Eduardo Aguilar 1,417 to 704 for executive vice president.
Incumbent Vice President of Operations Lisa Porterfield defeated Primary Senator at Large Jeremiah McLaughlin 1,220 to 924 for vice president of operations.
For vice president of finance, Senior Class Sen. Roby Butler defeated Junior Class Sen. Kyle Reynolds 1,334 to 835.
Heath said her main goal as SGA president for next year is to get more student input on goals important to the student body, but added she plans to take a closer look at the SGA election process.
“The election process is going to be different next year,” Heath said. “I think people got elected this year that the student’s really wanted. In the past, it was possible they couldn’t under the current [election]system.”
After the election results were announced Wednesday by the elections committee, an emergency meeting was held to address several complaints brought to the committee during the two-day voting process. Among those were allegations of student identification and pin number lists circulating among various student groups, candidate polling station vote solicitation and campus littering.
“On one of the voting days, [Carranza] came by my room and asked if could have some of my time,” junior Nathan Scarborough said. “He asked if I could bring up the SGA Web site on my laptop and asked me to put in my student identification and pin number. He stood over my shoulder for five minutes while I looked at the candidate list. After a while, he pointed to his name and said ‘oh, that’s me.’
“I said I’d look over the candidates and vote later, then he came out and asked if he could count on my vote and I told him he couldn’t.”
Scarborough said Carranza was friendly during the ordeal, but said he thought Carranza’s actions were rude.
Carranza was unavailable for comment and did not return calls to The Echo.
During the elections committee meeting, Sophomore Class President Sara Mullally said: “Everything in this election went really wrong. We can’t have this happen next year.”
Because of a lack of student complaints, the elections committee took no action. SGA adviser Mary Edwards said during the meeting, “Hearsay doesn’t go far in a court of law. I’m a little concerned it’s almost rumors” in regard to Mullally’s testimony to the committee.
Adviser Dave Dennis said he was disappointed with SGA’s Elections Security Ad Hoc Committee and hoped it would have researched other universities’ policies on online voting.
“It seems to me that hasn’t happened,” Dennis said.
The ad-hoc committee is made up of Heath, Mullally, Reynolds, Senior Class Vice President Tiffany Ransom, Freshman Class Sen. Cody Wilson and Carranza. Senator At Large Fitsum Tilahun is the committee chair.
Other students elected include: Senior class president, Michael Butler; Senior class vice president, Casey Wyatt; Junior class vice president, Roy Lynn Agee II; Sophomore class president, Chance Houston; and Sophomore class vice president, Brittany Dixon.