Despite David Bass’s nearly 300-vote win in the March 5-6 Student Association presidential election ‘ and amid allegations of sexual blackmail ‘ the race will be rerun because Bass apparently did not report his campaign expenditures in time.
The new election, which will take place Thurs., March 22, will also include a two-way runoff of the race for vice president for academic affairs and a rerun of a nonbinding referendum meant to gauge student support for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a statewide student action and lobbying group.
The presidential race, as it as in some years past, devolved into a fracas of grievances following grievances. Although Bass had filed a number of them against Belsky during the race, Belsky’s assertion that Bass had not filed his campaign financial paperwork on time put Belsky’s name back on the ballot for a recount. Another of Belsky’s grievances ‘ that Bass had blackmailed him behind closed doors, with no witnesses, by threatening to spread rumors about supposed ‘relations’ between the two back in high school ‘ had managed to get Bass temporarily pulled off the ballot entirely when the elections committee accepted it.
Belsky would not elaborate on the nature of the alleged blackmail, but Bass denied any such encounter took place. Bass was placed back on the ballot when the SA judicial board overturned the elections committee’s decision. For more on the story’s developments, see Friday’s issue of Pipe Dream.
The academic position, meanwhile, has come to a runoff because voided ballots in a number of dorm communities changed the rankings of the top contenders, Boris Tadchiev and Matt Laundau. Third-placed candidate Julia Fracassa ‘ who had originally only been eight votes behind second place ‘ was not included in the runoff.
And the NYPIRG referendum was to be rerun because of a number of apparent postering violations the first time around.
But the other races had been decisively called by Wednesday night. Chris Powell will be next year’s vice president of finance with a 198-vote lead over Alice Liou. Joe Danko, who ran officially unopposed, took the executive vice presidency with 1,492 votes. And Sandi Dube kept her job as vice president for University programming with 1,404 votes.
Rabeel Patoli, the vice president for multicultural affairs-elect with 1,320 votes, had faced last-minute competition from write-in candidate David Redbord, who took 113. Redbord had appealed to SA elections arbiters for a recount because many voters had apparently misspelled his name when they wrote him in, but they determined that even if all the disputed ballots had gone to Redbord he’d have had no chance of winning.
For a closer, final look at this year’s SA elections, see Friday’s issue of Pipe Dream.
Abridged SA executive board elections results, 2007-2008
President
David Belsky: 747 votes ‘ 40.8%
David Bass: 1068 votes ‘ 58.33%
Write-in candidates: 16 votes ‘ .87 %
Total votes: 1831
Executive vice president
Joe Danko: 1,492 votes ‘ 93.95%
Write-ins: 96 ‘ 6.05%
Total: 1,588 votes
Vice president for finance
Alice Liou: 722 votes ‘ 43.97%
Chris Powell: 920 votes ‘ 56.03%
Total: 1642
Vice president for academic affairs
Matt Landau: 571 votes, 569 votes after voids ‘ 33.45%
Boris Tadchiev: 574 votes, 556 after voids ‘ 32.69%
Julia Fracassa: 563 votes, 548 after voids ‘ 32.22%
Write-ins: 28 votes, 1.65%
Total votes: 1,701
Vice president for University programming
Sandi Dube: 1,404 votes ‘ 93.85%
Write-ins: 92 votes ‘ 6.15%
Total: 1,496 votes
Vice president for multicultural affairs:
Rabeel Patoli: 1,320 votes ‘ 85.55%
David Redbord: 113 votes ‘ 7.32%
Write-ins: 110 votes ‘ 7.13%
Total votes: 1,543