Enushe Khan (MSB ‘17) and Chris Fisk (COL ‘17) are the winners of the 2016 GUSA Executive Election, the Election Commission announced on Friday, Feb. 19 at 5:20 p.m.
Despite announcing on Friday at 12:33 a.m. that the election results would not be released until a Senate hearing on Sunday, the Commission decided on Friday that this would not be in compliance with the bylaws, according to Chair Alden Fletcher (SFS ‘17).
“We wanted to let the Senate vote on a procedural issue without knowing the implications of that in terms of the race,” he said. “However, upon the advice and consent of the Constitutional Council and several other bodies within GUSA, we realized that that would not work according the bylaws, and so now we are releasing the results.”
When asked whether the procedural issues were related to the number of write-in candidates, Fletcher said “you can infer that, yes.”
The write-in ticket of Maddy Moore (SFS ‘17) and Scott Lowder (COL ‘17) was the first to be eliminated in instant runoff voting, with 58 votes at the end of Round 1. Howard/Maduike was eliminated after the second round, with 454 votes.
In the third round of the instant runoff, Khan/Fisk surpassed 50 percent of total votes cast, with 1383 votes. The Hot Chick/Chicken Madness ticket finished second with 878 votes at the end of the third round.
The leaders of the Executive and Senate, the Election Commission, and the Constitutional Council met on Friday at 3:30 p.m. to discuss the procedural issues, according to Vice Speaker of the Senate Theodore Montgomery (SFS ’18). ”
“We found all parties to be in compliance and in agreement with the rules laid out in the bylaws,” he wrote in an emailed statement to campus media. “This meeting was purely to discuss whether the unmodified results should be released, and it was agreed that they should be.”
The election results will be certified by the Senate, as is mandated by the GUSA bylaws, on Sunday at 5 p.m.
