The Undergraduate Student Government Election Commission announced on Friday night that the Hopkins executive ticket has won the USG Tempe executive ticket race after previously announcing the Hostal ticket as the winner on Thursday.
The Hostal ticket, with Kate Hostal for president, Aidan Sigmund for vice president of policy and Alexander Lewis for vice president of service, was originally declared the winner. But the Hopkins ticket, with John Hopkins for president, Taryn Quigley for vice president of policy and Torie Hayes for vice president of service, contested the results after complaints were raised that the Election Commission incorrectly defined ranked choice voting in the 2021-22 Elections Code.
In ranked choice voting, the ticket that receives the majority of the first-choice votes is declared the winner. But if no candidate receives a majority, a new counting process is triggered in which the ticket that received the least number of votes is eliminated. Then, that candidate’s voters’ ballots are redistributed to their second-choice pick.
Of the three USGT executive tickets, none earned a majority, ensuing a second count that eliminated the Pardhe ticket, with Joshua Pardhe for president, Alejandro Urbina-Bernal for vice president of policy and Sloane Dunn for vice president of service.
On Thursday, instead of redistributing the Pardhe ticket’s voters’ ballots to their second choice, the Elections Commission counted every ballot’s second-choice votes, giving Hostal 50.88% of first and second-choice votes and Hopkins 49.11%.
READ MORE: 2021 USG election results announced
After recounting only the Pardhe ticket’s voters ballots Friday, Hopkins received 183 second-choice votes, while Hostal received only 80. This gave Hopkins a 51.66% majority using the number of votes that chose Hopkins as first and the number of votes that chose Pardhe as first and Hopkins as second.
Ballots that only indicated a first-choice candidate were unable to be included in both calculations.
The Election Commission acknowledged in a statement that the Elections Code did not follow the correct intent of ranked choice voting, thus requiring a recalculation of votes.
“This was the first time Rank Choice Voting was used and the mission of the Elections Commission is to deliver a fair election that demonstrates the will of the ASU student body,” the statement said.
The Hostal and Hopkins tickets did not respond to requests for comment.
Reach the reporter at rpriest2@asu.edu and follow @reaganspriest on Twitter.
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Reagan Priest is a managing editor, overseeing and working with the six digital desks at The State Press. She previously worked as a social justice reporter for Cronkite News and as a digital production intern at The Arizona Republic.
