Binghamton University students rejected by a 2-1 margin a hotly contested ballot referendum that was attached to runoff elections for the 2011-12 Student Association Executive Board on Wednesday, April 13.

The ballot measure would have allowed the SA to incorporate as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, and would also have replaced the current SA constitution with a new constitution that completely overhauled the existing system of student government.

A total of 831 students voted “no” on the ballot question, and 431 voted in favor of it.

“The new constitution is dead,” said Nick Valiando, chairman of the SA Elections Committee.

The controversial nature of the incorporation vote led to an extremely high turnout for an E-Board runoff election.

In the runoff election, Kaitlyn Flatley was elected vice president for academic affairs, according to unofficial results released April 14. Flatley received 630 votes, while her opponent, Michael Wong, received 579.

Catherine Cornell narrowly beat Johanna Sanders for the vice president for programing position, winning by just eight votes. The final count was 578 for Cornell and 570 for Sanders. Results must be approved by the Assembly before they are made official.

“This was an extraordinary turnout. To my knowledge this is the highest turnout of any non-standard E-Board election ever,” Valiando said. “I had to run extra ballots up to [College-in-the-Woods] three times.”

SA Assembly Speaker Randal Meyer, who was a major advocate for incorporation and the constitutional changes, said he was pleased about the turnout, even if he did not see the outcome he would have liked.

“I’m happy so many students came out to voice opinion,” he said. “It’s very clear the students know what they wanted. Unfortunately, that was not the constitution.”

George Hadjiconstantinou, an Assembly representative who opposed the constitutional changes, said he was surprised by the outcome.

“To be honest … I thought they were going to get it,” he said, referring to students who favored passing the referendum.

Meyer and Hadjiconstantinou, who are both graduating seniors, expressed a desire to see the incorporation issue brought up again next year.

“I think that in some form it will be revisited,” Meyer said. “I hope that the SA reaches incorporation at some point.”

Hadjiconstantinou said the SA “definitely should revisit” the incorporation issue.

“Incorporation wasn’t what we were against, it was the other changes,” he said. “The structure of the government that was proposed was unacceptable to the students of the University and they showed that tonight.”

On the day of elections Meyer mentioned that some may challenge the election results, but Meyer said that no grievances had been filed and that he was not expecting that any would be.

“I’m not getting that sense at all on any of the campaigns,” Meyer said.

— Aaron Axelson and Rob Bellon contributed to this report.