Over two weeks after the first Student Association presidential election results declared David Bass the winner, yesterday’s runoff came to the same outcome ‘ but with an even bigger margin over his opponent, current executive vice president David Belsky.

While the March 5 and 6 elections left Bass, the SA’s current vice president for multicultural affairs, the clear winner with 321 votes and a margin of 18 percent, yesterday’s election separated the candidates by around 300 votes and a margin of slightly over 20 percent.

‘It’s great, finally! The students have spoken once again,’ Bass said after the count was announced last night. ‘They weren’t going to stand for the disenfranchisement of their votes and their voices.’

All results are unofficial until the Assembly votes to finalize them Monday.

Although Belsky had gone so far as to congratulate Bass on his win after the first race, the election was thrown out after Belsky pointed out that Bass had not turned in his campaign receipts by the deadline.

Bass was nearly thrown off the ballot entirely when Belsky went further, alleging that Bass had used past ‘relations’ between the two in a behind-closed-doors attempt to blackmail him into withdrawing from the rerun. Early the next day, he filed a report of harassment with Binghamton’s New York State University Police. While the Elections Committee agreed with Belsky, the SA Judicial Board overturned its decision based on a lack of any evidence or witnesses to the alleged blackmail.

Belsky ‘ who was not in the room for the count ‘ said that he would not be questioning these results, but could not be reached for further comment on the results, or as to whether he would be pressing charges against Bass.

‘He went so negative,’ Bass said of Belsky’s campaign, which had begun calling Bass a ‘cheater’ on posters. ‘I criticized him on his record. I never attacked him as person.’

Bass also said he had no intention of incorporating Belsky into his office next year, citing the need for ‘new voices’ in the SA.

In a rerun of the election for the vice president for academic affairs, Matt Landau won by a 60-vote margin over Boris Tadchiev.

The VPAA election had to be rerun after voided votes changed the results of the original count, in which the winner and loser were only separated by 11 votes.

Neither Landau nor Tadchiev could be reached for comment by phone last night.

And a majority (52 percent) of students voted ‘yes’ to a referendum aimed at gauging their support for restoring funding to the New York Public Interest Research Group, a statewide lobbying organization for student issues.

The original NYPIRG votes were thrown out entirely after the organization broke postering rules, and were not counted.

Christine Agic, the regional campus supervisor for NYPIRG, said that the vote showed student support for its BU NYPIRG chapter ‘ but that there might have been even more support had the original vote been counted.

‘Let’s just remember that 2,000 votes were thrown out and students were disenfranchised. Still, it’s great that 1,500 students voted again.’