Brandon Smith, a political science and international studies sophomore, was declared the unofficial president-elect in the Black Student Union elections Wednesday night. However, Smith’s opponent, Maurice Gipson, has filed an appeal contesting the results.
Out of 284 votes cast, Gipson received 108 votes, while Smith received 147 votes.
The BSU adopted the Student Government election code for this election. However, according to Aaron Bastian, BSU vice president, the SG code was adopted mainly for campaigning purposes.
“This election code is left for interpretation by us because we follow a separate constitution,” Bastian said.
Gipson alleges three violations to the code in the BSU election. The code says candidates for president and vice president “shall be listed together on the ballot as a ticket.”
According to Gipson’s appeal, this was not the case, and the ballots were confusing.
“The first ballots on election day did not comply with this article in that the presidential candidates were listed together followed by the vice president candidates,” the appeal stated. The second ballots, which replaced the previous ballots used that day, also had irregularities since both the presidential and vice presidential candidates had voting lines next to their names.”
Gipson alleges that sample ballots were not displayed outside the SG executive office according to code, which led to voter confusion and ballot irregularity.
In addition, Gipson said voting began at 9 a.m. instead of the code-mandated 8 a.m.
“There are voters who are willing to attest to their denial of voting due to the time they arrived,” Gipson said.
The BSU election board met Thursday night to hear Gipson’s appeal and discuss the next course of action. The meeting was not concluded by press time.
Smith said while he thinks it is unfortunate an appeals process has to take place, he is excited about receiving the vote of the people.
“It speaks to a grassroots campaign and having a positive track record,” Smith said.