On Tuesday night, Karlee Makely ’19 was elected as the next president of Muhlenberg’s Student Government Association (SGA).
Makely received 437 votes, with Nicholas Gregg Rubingh ’20 finishing in second place with 279.
As only 20 candidates ran for representative seats, all were elected.
Shortly before the results were announced via email, The Weekly was notified that current SGA president Emily Morton ’18 endorsed presidential candidate Rubingh and representative candidate Cynthia Silva ’19 in a post to the Phi Sigma Sigma Facebook group.
According to the SGA Election Manual, this action does not constitute a violation.
Although Morton did not endorse the winning candidate, Kyle Moore ’19 indicated that he has contested the results of the election.
“In any election the people counting the votes and responsible for making decisions on campaign violations must be unbiased,” said Moore. “In this election the committee was clearly biased in candidate preference and that simply can’t stand.”
Representing the SGA Nominations & Elections Committee, Morton offered the following in response:
“The integrity of the election and the committee outweighs any and all benefits of possible collusion,” said Morton. “No one cares more about the integrity of the election than we do. The committee reviewed every allegation objectively and came to the conclusion that none of the allegations warranted a sanction of any kind.”
