Cooper and Lee in runoff election

Ending a litigious campaign that left candidates battered and frustrated by complaints, the Board of Elections announced late Thursday night that juniors Mary Cooper and Ian Lee would move on to a runoff election for student body president.

Cooper and Lee, who garnered 39 and 25 percent of the vote, respectively, will now have a week to campaign in preparation for a Feb. 25 runoff election. All results are unofficial until confirmed by the board.

Phillips stood in the east end of the Pit and announced the results to an excited and impromptu crowd of campaign staffers, friends and passersby.

Cooper immediately embraced her staff and friends after Phillips announced the results.

Lee said he was glad the injunction had been lifted and excited for the final stretch of the campaign.

The announcement came as a shock to Rick Ingram, a leading candidate who was nearly disqualified Feb. 7 after multiple reports from the Lee and Cooper campaigns of harmful conduct.

“Looking back, I wish I could change the way the coverage went down,” said Ingram, who received 18 percent of the vote.

“Nothing I can do about it now,” he added.

Brooklyn Stephens finished in fourth place, with 14 percent.

Ingram said he would consider filing a complaint similar to that of Deanna Santoro, the former speaker of Student Congress who resigned Feb. 7 to file a complaint against the board for confirming Lee’s candidacy. Santoro’s complaint resulted in the injunction to delay the release of the results.

Phillips said he thinks any similar complaint would likely fail.

“It seems that if the statute of limitations has passed for Santoro it probably has passed for other people,” he said.

The announcement came just 45 minutes after Jessica Womack, chief justice of the Student Supreme Court, notified the board that she had dismissed Santoro’s complaint. Santoro argued that Lee should not have been permitted to campaign without stepping down as student body secretary.

After receiving notification that his motion to dismiss was granted, Phillips called all of the candidates to the Pit.

Womack ruled that the statute of limitations — or period during which Santoro could file a legitimate suit — expired 72 hours after the board made the decision Dec. 13.

To contest the decision, Santoro had to prove it directly and adversely affected her. She said Lee’s candidacy forced her to resign from her position as speaker of Student Congress.

Womack stated in her decision that if the ruling harmed Santoro by forcing her resignation, she would have had to file the complaint within 72 hours of the Dec. 13 decision.

Womack did not address Santoro’s complaints that the Board of Elections had misinterpreted Student Code because the case, she ruled, was illegitimate.

Had she decided to hear the case, Womack said the injunction to delay results would have likely drawn out for another week.

She said the prospect of further delaying results did not enter into her decision.

“I don’t think it would have been spring break and people sitting around wondering who their student body president would be,” she said.

Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.