By Jackie Burns
Losing presidential candidate Jarrett Churchill smells incompetence at RyeSAC. He is forcing the council to recount the ballots this week, after two different sets of results were announced in last week’s executive election.
According to the results on Thursday night at The Cavern victory party, Churchill lost by 19 votes to fellow candidate Angelo DeLuca.
But Kester Birch, RyeSAC’s chief returning officer, made a clerical error in posting the results.
After the numbers were re-tabulated Friday, it was announced Churchill had now lost by 57 votes.
However, the was no scrutineer present when the number were re-tabulated, only current RyeSAC staff.
Doug Cudmore, the scrutineer who witnessed the original counting of the ballots (and The Eyeopener editor-in-chief) said the second set of numbers were off.
“The numbers they had Friday morning aren’t the same ones we tallied up Thursday night,” he said. “I remember we commented on how close it was. Nobody got over 200 votes, and now they have DeLuca down as having 212.”
Churchill said he heard rumours Kelli Campbell, current VP education, helped re-tabulate the ballot sheets the second time around.
“I just wanted to make sure there was no corruption. Any more corruption than usual I mean,” said Churchill, a third-year journalism student.
“Even if it doesn’t change anything, I just want to be sure of the real results.
“I had those 30 votes Thursday night, and by Friday they had disappeared? That doesn’t make sense,” said Churchill.
Kester Birch, chief returning officer for elections at RyeSAC said a recount is “no big deal.”
“We still have all the ballots in the office,” he said. “They’re all locked away in there just waiting to be counted again.”
Angelo DeLuca, current VP administration and presidential winner, said every once in a while adding mistakes happen.
“I absolutely agree with re-counting because I want the real winner to come out,” he said.
With files from Krista Lennox
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