MARCUS FLOWERS ’16 DELIVERS his first address as the 150th Grand Marshal.Members of the “A Stronger Union” party were caught vandalizing campaign materials belonging to President of the Union candidate Gregory Bartell ’17 during Grand Marshal Week 2015. On Monday, April 12, RPI TV took footage of Andrew Sudano ’17, PU candidate and President of the “A Stronger Union” party, removing strips of tape from a tape mural that read “Greg for PU TD: 4/17.” The original article and accompanying video were released by The Poly and RPI TV at 6 pm on Wednesday, April 15.
The party members identified in the video were Sudano, Sean Waclawik ’18, Kayla Cinnamon ’18, and Steven Sperazza ’18. During the GM Week Debates on Wednesday, April 15, the Rules and Elections Committee released Sanction 8, which prohibited members of “A Stronger Union” from campaigning as a party, and Sudano, Waclawik, Cinnamon, and Sperazza from actively campaigning.
A student anonymously submitted images of “A Stronger Union” party members allegedly actively campaigning on Thursday, April 16. Sudano withdrew from the PU race later that night.
Sanction 9, released Friday, April 17 shortly after Sudano had withdrawn, originally disqualified GM candidate and party Co-President Michael Han ’16, Sudano, and Justin Etzine ’18, who was listed as the party manager for “A Stronger Union.” R&E revised Sanction 9 the next day, rescinding all sanctions against Han and Etzine in Sanction 9 after hearing appeals from Han and Etzine. However, R&E ruled that Sudano had violated the GM Week 2015 Election Handbook Honor Code, and sanctions against him were still applicable.
On Friday, elections results involving members of the “A Stronger Union” party were withheld pending a Judicial Board case brought by Bartell. Results for elections not involving party members were announced at the GM Week Finale at the Houston Field House on Friday, April 17.
On Sunday, April 19, the J-Board met to decide if Bartell’s claim was valid, which suggested that all elections involving “A Stronger Union” party members should be invalidated. The J-Board ultimately declared that all elections involving party members were valid, and released a letter to Bartell, which detailed the decision. Additionally, the J-Board provided suggestions to R&E for improving the GM Week Handbook for the 2016 election cycle.
The complete GM Week elections results were announced in Mother’s Wine Emporium on Monday, April 20. R&E Chairman Paul Ilori ’17 and J-Board Chairman Anthony Barbieri ’15 announced the results of the referenda votes and elections results for Class Councils and the Student Senate. All eight referenda passed.
President of the Union Erin Amarello ’15 announced that no PU candidate reached the 40 percent threshold to be elected and that there will be a runoff election with Bartell and Nicholas Dvorak ’16 on the ballot. Bartell received 35.9 percent of votes and write-in Dvorak received 14.957 percent of votes. Any votes for Sudano were considered blank.
Former Grand Marshal Kyle Keraga ’15 announced that Marcus Flowers ’16 was elected Grand Marshal with 42.6 percent of all votes. Han came in second with 38.4 percent of votes and Ryan Moriarty ’16, who ran a write-in campaign, came in third with 10.1 percent of the vote. Elections results can be found at http://docs.studentsenate.rpi.edu/documents/2812.
Another round of PU debates will be held in the McNeil Room on Thursday, April 23. Polls will be open for the PU election on Friday, April 24 from 9 am to 5 pm in the Union and the Darrin Communications Center.