The results of the Tennessee Tech Student Government Association Executive council election will be withheld from the student body until after an SGA Supreme Court hearing Thursday.
“The SGA Supreme Court feels that it would be best to wait to announce the SGA Executive Council election results until after they have a hearing concerning a petition that was submitted by a current SGA Executive Officer and current SGA Senator,” current SGA President Emily McDonald wrote in an email sent to members of SGA Monday morning.
SGA Vice President Daniel Tribble and SGA Senator Nick Russell filed the petition over the weekend in attempts to delay the election until the SGA Supreme Court can make a ruling on the eligibility of SGA presidential candidate Bobby Adams.
“Mr. Adams was not a full-time student at the time his petition was turned in and signed,” Tribble and Russell wrote in their petition.
The current SGA constitution dictates that all elected members of the Executive branch be full-time students of Tech. According to the petition, Adams was two hours short of being full time when his petition for election was turned in.
“When I became aware that I needed to become a full-time student, I just signed up for the hours I needed,” Adams said. “As soon as I became aware, I went through the proper avenues, I went and registered for two credit hours.”
Tribble and Russell wrote in their petition that Adams was aware of the new rules for this year’s election when he signed and initialed the new rules during a dead hour meeting April 7.
“Marc Burnett (Vice President of Student Affairs and Faculty Advisor of SGA) was the one who threw out the ‘2015 SGA Election Rules.’” Tribble said.
The reasoning for this, Tribble said, was based off of the basis that typically student groups such as the InterFraternity Council do not implement changes until a semester after they are made. The SGA Supreme Court will hold a hearing Thursday, April 16, after the actual votes are collected to determine whether or not Adams could officially run for president based on the SGA Constitution.
“The main issue still remains,” Tribble said. “Should (Adams) be allowed to run based off him not being full time at the start of the campaign? The Supreme Court will decide that.”
Despite the competition, the Adams presidential camp continues to campaign as normal.
“I know that there are questions, and that’s OK because there’s always going to be questions, but the good thing is that I followed procedure on everything,” Adams said.
The SGA Supreme Court will hold a hearing Thursday, April 16, after the actual votes are collected to determine whether or not Adams could officially run for president based on the SGA Constitution. The polls for the Executive election will be open at 8 a.m. Tuesday and will close at 5 p.m. the same day.
