After receiving complaints from two candidates, representatives from Duke Student Government's Election Commission met Friday to finalize the results of runoffs in Thursday's executive elections.
DSG conducted the runoffs again, and members of the Election Commission upheld the original results from the races in question, declaring sophomore Elliott Wolf president and freshman Jordan Giordano vice president of community interaction.
Sophomore Hasnain Zaidi and junior Daniel Bowes-the second-place finishers in the respective races-submitted complaints in response to how the runoffs were conducted. "What I wanted to do was make sure everybody's vote was counted," Zaidi said. "I asked them to scrutinize the results one more time."
The election bylaws state that if no candidate receives a 10 percent plurality, a runoff must be conducted. Zaidi and Bowes, who is also a columnist for The Chronicle, drew attention to a discrepancy between two sections of the bylaws as to how the runoff is performed.
The first section-which calls for a single transferable vote process-states that if no candidate receives a 10 percent plurality, the top two finishers will compete in an exclusive runoff election.
In contrast, the second section-which establishes a process for instant runoff voting-states that the lowest finisher will be dropped from the race. The second-choice votes of all students voting for that candidate should then be redistributed among the other candidates. The process should be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of votes.
Thursday's election employed the instant runoff process. Zaidi and Bowes called the discrepancy between this procedure and the single transferable vote into question. The Election Commission unanimously upheld their claims.
Although the voting website used software that is designed to conduct the instant runoff procedure, the Commission declared that the single transferable vote process should be used.
The Commission based its decision on the structure of the bylaws. The section calling for the single transferable vote preceded the section establishing the instant runoff procedure, thus overriding it.
The algorithm for the runoff was changed, and the results were recalculated using single transferable vote.
Although Zaidi and his advisor Brittany Greenfield, a junior, attributed the election's problems to the new software-which was created to conduct an instant runoff in response to last year's six-day presidential election standstill-DSG President Jesse Longoria, a senior, denied this claim.
"The software ran very smoothly without any hitches," he said. "The bylaws disagreed with themselves."
When the software's algorithm was changed to allow for single transferable vote, Wolf surpassed Zaidi with 55.55 percent of the 3,479 votes cast. The second runoff allotted Giordano 51.48 percent, allowing him to pass Bowes.
Wolf said he was pleased by the final results, noting that the controversy "exposed a hole in the DSG bylaws that should have been closed earlier."
"I'm happy with the results and glad they're official now," he said.
Zaidi said that despite losing, he is satisfied with the election's outcome. "I was almost positive that was going to be the result anyway," he said. "I just wanted to make sure it was done properly. The election's done with, and I'm not going to push the issue at all. I don't think that's what Duke needs."
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