Ferris’ Student Government Association opened a second round of voting for their presidential election after the first round resulted in a tie.
Voting is now open until 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 24. and the winner will be announced at the meeting on Tuesday Feb. 27 in the Founders Room.
The first round of voting was open from Feb. 14-16 and Stephen Bender and Pedro Saltini each received 195 votes. With no protocol for a tie, Tuesday’s meeting was dedicated to reaching a solution.
The previous link in Bulldog Connect was broken during part of the initial voting time, leaving many students unable to vote last week. Because of this, opinions were split on whether the initial set of votes should count or if a complete redo of the election was necessary. The room voted and it was decided that the first set of votes would count, and voting would reopen for students that were unable to or didn’t vote the first time.
Some students and SGA members took issue with the cabinet having access to the voting information as it was coming in.
“The board had information about the amount of votes for Stephen and the amount of votes for Pedro.” Jake McGaha, a member of SGA, said. “I personally believe this is an unjust thing and the student government board shouldn’t have access to the votes coming in just like in a real election.”
The new voting link was sent out through a different closed system by advisors Jeanine Ward-Roof and Lina Blair. They will be the only ones with access to this round of votes.
According to chief of staff Sarah Youngs, SGA does not have any plans for what to do in case of another tie.
“We’re just going to hope that this time around we can get it right and we won’t have a tie,” Youngs said.
Cast your vote now: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=LjawZMCFlU6kzlZR2Wy3Ofkv0s6uQlpNpS2CyBTMllJUQUNCTkhUV1dSVlY2OU45MzBQVUlTOUNUNS4u
