With an election marred by complaints, hearings and injunctions behind them, the candidates for student body president said they are looking forward to the calm after the storm.
On Thursday, after learning that he would not move on to the runoff election, Rick Ingram said he would consider filing a complaint challenging the Board of Elections’ decision to confirm the candidacy of Ian Lee. On Sunday, Ingram said he would not file that complaint.
“I’m choosing not to file,” Ingram said in a text message to The Daily Tar Heel. “I believe the students are ready for this election cycle to be over, and I don’t want to be the one to perpetuate an already frustrating situation.”
Though runoff elections often have lower voter turnout, Ingram said he thinks even fewer will vote in Friday’s runoff election due to the setbacks that prolonged this year’s election cycle.
Any complaint by Ingram would have echoed the suit filed Feb. 7 by Deanna Santoro, who resigned her role as speaker of Student Congress to challenge the board’s decision to confirm Lee, the student body secretary, as a candidate. She argued that the Student Code prohibits the student body secretary and other high-ranking student government officials from campaigning.
The two top candidates, Mary Cooper and Lee, said they will look past the issues and negativity that defined the first stage of the race and set their sights on Friday.
“I was excited to get back on the campaign trail … and to move past what has been a really dirty election,” said Lee, who garnered 25 percent of the vote, second to Cooper’s 39 percent.
Cooper said a clean, interruption-free runoff is in everyone’s best interest.
“The campus is getting over the pettiness of the complaints,” she said. “We really strive to have a campaign that’s positive and that tries to inspire others.”
