Roger Zhang - The Battalion
Students at Texas A&M University voted last week to make Lake Highlands High School grad John Claybrook their Student Body President. Today it’s official – John won.
The road to victory has taken lots of unexpected turns, and it’s likely many of John’s election team are dozing in Aggie classrooms after a long night.
To recap: After the general election, John and one other candidate, Thomas McNutt, earned spots in the runoff election, but there was a problem. Questions arose about the value of donated website and media services used by the McNutt campaign, and he was briefly disqualified. After being reinstated on appeal, the runoff proceeded and all four presidential candidates now out of the race endorsed John.
Students voted on campus Thursday and Friday, and the tally indicated John’s clear victory – he earned 60% of the votes cast.
But, again, there was a problem.
The election commission found that sales tax wasn’t properly documented on John’s campaign expense forms (it was either lumped in with the line item purchased or left off the form completely) and questioned shipping charges. Though the issues amounted to nickels and dimes, a $270 fine was assessed, bumping John’s total campaign spending above stated limits. Even while some of his Aggie friends were still celebrating, the election commission was scheduling a new runoff election for Tuesday – John was disqualified.
Luckily, John’s appeal prevailed after a late-night round of pleadings. His supporters, packed into the Judicial Court meeting room, were thrilled.
