Student election settled

The Florida-like election conducted for student government offices at UNR on March 13 has finally been resolved.

In one student senate election, two candidates named Taylor Anderson were supposed to be distinguished only by their middle initials. Instead, someone decided to designate one of them as the incumbent next to his ballot listing. He lost anyway.

In another case, someone decided without authority to list “none of the above” on the ballot for student body president. That drained off some votes and brought the winning total of Eli Reilly down to a plurality. This complicated things because a majority is required for election.

A student court ruled last week that neither “none of the above” or “incumbent” should have been listed on the ballot, but it declined to overturn either election because no one proved the errors affected the elections. In the presidential race, the panel effectively threw out 23 “none” votes. With those voted invalidated, Reilly received a majority, 706 votes to 695 for Carmen Gilbert. The student president represents an electorate of 13,000 students.