Btown awaiting official certification

After an intense campaign season filled with students running around in red and orange T-shirts, the results are in: The Btown ticket is the unofficial winner of this year’s IU Student Association election.

IUSA Elections Coordinator Elizabeth Retana said the IUSA Supreme Court should certify the election promptly.

After two days of voting, Btown received 3,991 votes, while 3,365 votes were cast for Red-Hot. ONE University, which announced it would cease campaigning Monday, came in third place with 128 votes.

Btown ticket executives said their realistic platform propelled them to victory. Their platform is based on five Bs: bikes, books, break, basketball and Btown Express.

“I think we connected with the student body because we had realistic platform issues rather than large price tags attached to it,” said junior Peter SerVaas, IUSA president-elect. “We looked for feasible initiatives that additionally met specific student needs.”

SerVaas said particular individuals will be overseeing certain platform issues. He added that the basketball gym cameras will be a “great and easy implementation process.”

Btown ticket executives said their ticket’s workers were a dedicated bunch.

“We had a strong base of support based on a strong platform,” said Vice President-elect Jack McCarthy, a junior. “The people we had working on our campaign made our job really easy.”

Representatives from the three tickets running in the IUSA election said there was no bad blood between them, but rather a line of open communication.

“There was mutual respect between all executives,” SerVaas said.

McCarthy added, “We had an open discourse throughout the campaign and election day.”

Second-year law student Ben Blair, presidential candidate for ONE University, said all the tickets wanted to avoid the same type of controversy of last year’s election, when one of the candidates from the Kirkwood ticket invaded current IUSA president Luke Fields’ computer and forwarded campaign e-mails to members of their ticket.

“All the tickets basically tried to avoid each other,” Blair said. “They wanted to avoid anything like last year from happening. Tickets avoided being at the same place at the same time.”

Junior Andrew Hahn, presidential candidate for the Red-Hot ticket, said although Red-Hot ticket members put their “heart and souls into the campaign to make the student voice heard” to form an administration that had strong potential, he believes Btown could make a great administration as well.

“They built a strong campaign organization,” Hahn said. “They definitely have the potential to make a great administration. I encourage them to work hard.”

Blair said he was happy Btown won the election.

“Btown winning is proof that students wanted to see something different for student government, and they will prove to be good student leaders on campus,” Blair said.

As for the elections code, all the tickets did a great job at following the rules, Retana said.

“I think that with all the potential to go wrong, all went well,” she said.

In a Thursday public meeting, IUSA elections commissioners, along with Btown executives, met to discuss a discrepancy with financial statements. Section 603: Financial Statements of the elections code was found to be ambiguous by both the Btown and ONE University tickets.

The election code states, “A financial statement is defined as an itemized list of all campaign expenditures, including receipts and appropriate document for each campaign expenditure listed. A signed financial disclosure affidavit must accompany all financial statements. For this section, an affidavit shall consist of an itemized list of all contributions and their respective signature(s), date of contribution, and candidate or ticket affiliation.”

The elections commission decided to fine ONE University with 5 percent of the ticket’s total expenditures and Btown with 2.5 percent of its own. ONE University was fined because of improper submission of expenditures and contributions, while Btown was fined for improperly submitting their contributions.

Btown appealed the election commission’s decision to the IUSA Supreme Court because executives believed the situation was a misunderstanding. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the elections commission, and after Thursday’s hearing, the commission has 24 hours to issue a decision.

The Btown ticket has no chance of being disqualified, Retana said.

ONE University will still have to pay its fine as the ticket did not appeal the elections commission’s decision.

Btown executives said they are committed to making the elections code even clearer during their term in office and believe the decision to have the elections code reviewed by Congress every year was a necessary adjustment made by the current administration.

Although the elections code might be altered, Retana said it will never be completely clear.

“I think that no matter how the elections code is written there will always be loopholes and questions,” Retana said.