The Downtown Election Committee reached a final decision Wednesday on an attempt to appeal the disqualification of a student government presidential ticket.
The committee gave President-elect Christian Vasquez the authority to decide whether to allow disqualified candidates Andres Cano and Vaughn Hillyard to take part in an appeals process by using the supreme courts at either the Tempe or West campuses.
The Downtown student government has a judiciary board, but a committee official said using the board would have been a conflict of interest since Vasquez is currently the board’s chairman and several members of the board openly supported Vasquez’s campaign.
Shortly after the committee gave Vasquez the option, he decided not to allow Cano and Hillyard to use another campus’ supreme court.
“It was very unfortunate what happened,” Vasquez said. “However, we want to move forward with this and work with everyone.”
Vasquez said he has chosen to follow the Downtown campus elections code, which does not include an appeals process. However, he said as president he will work toward forming both an appeals process and a Downtown supreme court.
Downtown Election Committee member Abby Wischnia said the committee decided to give Vasquez the authority to make the decision because of his president-elect status.
Cano, whose ticket received 58 percent of the vote but was disqualified, said he and his supporters are not done asserting that it is wrong to ignore the election results.
“I think it was the absolute wrong mistake to give this decision to [Vasquez],” Cano said. “Tonight is not the end of this.”
Wischnia said putting blame on the elections committee for the decisions they have made is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Reach the reporter at kjdaly@asu.edu
