In the week preceding election announcements, students voted and advocated for SGA senate, vice president and president candidates. Shortly after, an email from current SGA President Danny Nguyen announced the winners in an email and named Joy Areola as president. However, after deliberation, SGA decided to hold a runoff election to secure an absolute majority.
The election numbers didn’t disclose the number of votes received for each candidate based on a historical precedent to remove any sense of superiority within SGA. At 5:13 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, all students received an email from SGA President Nguyen about an error in interpreting the votes for the 2024-2025 student body president. Rather than choosing the winner based on an absolute majority, Areola won based on a simple majority without having 50% of the votes. This necessitated a runoff between the two candidates who had received the most votes: class of 2025 senators Joy Areola and Andrew Phillips.
After five days of students re-casting their votes for either candidate, Areola secured her position as SGA president on April 11. Areola, junior business administration major, expressed the complexities of the situation.
“It was a really confusing and conflicting situation. There was merit to having the runoff, and there was also the more emotional side of having the role up for grabs again,” Areola said. “I’m glad with how it turned out, and I’m really proud of the senate for figuring out how to handle this situation.”
The runoff was brought to SGA’s attention by a group of students who expressed that with four candidates running for president, there likely was an unclear majority. . After deliberation, the voting decision was petitioned, and the Senate approved a runoff election.
While there was a runoff for the vice presidential role last school year, this was the first time a runoff for president occurred in Trinity history. SGA voted on a new election committee and adjusted the campaign rules to meet the situation’s needs, making the campaigns online-only.
The previous election committee did not violate SGA constitutional rules because the constitution doesn’t express what type of majority must exist for the presidential and vice presidential elections. Lucy Orosco, senior finance major, senator and election committee member, explained how the runoff election was decided.
“When the concern was brought up, it was brought up to the Senate. We did an hour deliberation on the pros and cons and what this would imply, and we, of course, are looking forward to preserving the best interest of the whole student body,” Orosco said.
Campaigns are public events, and SGA attempts to maintain the ability for candidates to return to normalcy after a campaign. Orosco further emphasized the hope for SGA to respect the choices of all students.
“I think with this runoff election, we also are trying to preserve and maintain in everyone’s mind that the students that are running are students. They have feelings, they are people,” Orosco said. “So while we’re not perfect, we really try our best. We put a lot of effort and a lot of time into everything.”
The other presidential candidate, Andrew Phillips, junior geoscience and theatre double-major and class of 2025 senator, intends to run for Senate next year, seeing as there are three vacancies for senators in his class. Phillips expressed his initial surprise when a majority was announced at first.
“I was definitely surprised when there was one winner announced, but also I was glad that campus could make a decision like that,” Phillips said. “My brain has been in the campaign mindset now for a hot minute, and I’m ready to kick back and relax for once, but I’m happy with it.”
Now that the election season is over, SGA can reflect on this experience and make changes for the future. Nguyen encouraged student engagement with SGA.
“We’re still steadfast in our goals in terms of continuing to be stewards of student interests and student success,” Nguyen said. “We strive to be the best that we can be and we encourage and welcome any and all feedback because it makes us better and in hopes that when we’re better we can serve you better.”
