Holgate won't get re-vote in Student Congress race

The Student Supreme Court unanimously decided not to call for re-election in the District 5 race for Student Congress, dismissing candidate Taylor Holgate’s suit against Board of Elections Chairman Pete Gillooly.

The court found that the Board of Elections violated the Student Code by failing to obtain a letter from ITS certifying that the voting software was secure.

The published opinion states that the court declined to call for a re-election because the board’s violation was not so egregious as to compromise the results.

At a March 17 hearing, Chief Justice Emma Hodson said no decision would be announced until an opinion was released.

But the court issued the decision without the opinion on April 6 to be able to swear in Luke Woodcock as District 5 representative with the other elected candidates at the student government inauguration held the same day.

Hodson declined to comment on the ruling.

Holgate filed a suit against Gillooly in February, claiming the board was negligent when ensuring that the online voting system was secure and when certifying the results of the Feb. 9 election.

She added that the board failed to properly publicize the provisional ballots for those who were unable to vote through Student Central.

Problems with the online voting system disenfranchised as many as 296 voters who might not have voted out of fear that their votes would violate the Honor Code.

Holgate lost the election for Greek housing district representative by 25 votes.

Gillooly said the discrepancies that prevented students from voting were not the fault of the board.

Holgate said she has been discussing plans with Erik Davies, who served as her legal counsel in the case, to set up an organization for students who want to challenge student government.

“It would be a people’s prosecutor type of thing to help students who have been harmed by the system that’s in place,” she said.

Gillooly said he was satisfied with the court’s decision.

“I was surprised that the case went this far in the first place,” he said. “I didn’t think their claim was grounded in anything.”



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