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SGA elections reach majority vote without a winner

The news is on nearly every student’s lips, and tensions are nothing short of palpable. Meanwhile, the excitement is reaching all time highs as conversations heat up over the rare SGA run-off…
Wait. This all seems eerily familiar. It must be due to that fact that last year’s SGA elections also resulted in a run-off. The SGA election results were released yesterday and to no one’s surprise there is going to be another run off.
No disrespect to the candidates, who will undoubtedly make fine presidents for the student body, but the fact that we are in another run off is not merely a coincidence or a divinely inspired luck of the draw. It is the result of SGA election policy that fails to consider the outlandish idea that more than two people will run for the presidential election.
The simple majority is a self-aware idea that requires a 50 percent plus one vote in order to elect a candidate. Simple? Yes. Practical? Apparently to the SGA election committee.
Demario Jones was the leader in votes with 686 of the 1,734 total votes cast for presidential candidates. To be sure that is approximately 40 percent of the vote. Candidate Chris Nish received 547 votes or around 31 percent. That leaves candidate Ryan Brown with roughly 29 percent of the vote at 501 votes.
The math might not be on Einstein’s level. Even a kindergartener could tell you that Demario Jones is the winner. He has the most votes and he has the majority of all of the votes, so he is the winner.
This might seem like an attempt by a tired, nervous Jones supporter, but it is more of a reflection from a rational, confused voter. This conundrum would still exist if either of the other candidates had won the basic majority.
The thing is that the voting is there to allow the student body to choose which student should be in charge of the student government. From a logical stand point that has happened, so why make them do it again? It is kind of like the SGA election committee is asking the student body, “Are you sure?”
Yes. The student body had two days to make sure they wanted to vote for one of the three candidates and those 10,000 or so that didn’t vote also made their decision. But still, every SGA election feels like the 2000 U.S. Presidential election.
The point is that this whole process, which the election committee was supposed to have improved, has left everyone involved looking around in boredom and slight confusion.
The student body has spoken. Don’t insult them by second guessing. The SGA needs to stop pandering and get on with it already. A good place to start would be giving it one more shot at fixing the election process.

This editorial was written by Michael Wilson (mhwilson@valdosta.edu) and it expresses the opinion of the entire editorial staff.

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