After a fiery campaign, TUACTION! won the election for Temple Student Government’s executive branch.
Kylie Patterson, a junior political science and African-American studies major, is next year’s student body president.
Jon DeSantis, former TSG parliamentarian, is the new vice president of services, and Anthony Leroy, former TSG treasurer, is the vice president of external affairs.
TUACTION! garnered 2,231votes, while TU Dream Team followed with 1,537.
An additional 176 votes came from write-in tickets. More people voted in this year’s election than ever before, with a total of 3,944 votes cast.
On the second day of voting, the tickets attended a hearing with the TSG Supreme Court regarding possible disqualification.
TUACTION! was charged with four election code violations. The one most stressed by Elections Commissioner Alex Casale was a polling location set up in the Johnson & Hardwick cafeteria.
One of TUACTION!’s campaign workers, Jonea Price, set up a table with two laptops logged onto the UVote Web site, a TUACTION! sign and candy incentives for voters. Campaign manager Jarae Hines was also present at the table.
Price said she asked Casale at the presidential debate if this would be OK. She also asked for confirmation in an e-mail. Casale gave her permission to set up the table.
Casale said she thought Price meant she wanted a voting table that advocated TSG and got people to vote. She did not remember saying “yes” to laptops or campaign materials.
“I think this was due to a lot of miscommunication between the commissioner and the parties,” said Alex Herrera, TSG’s chief Supreme Court justice.
TUACTION! received a major violation for having its campaign manager at the polling table. It was fined $90.
Other violations included having an unstamped sign, having a campaign member campaigning for TUACTION! at the Student Center polling location and advertising TUACTION! at University Village without permission of management.
Leroy showed a letter from the marketing and licensing director at University Village giving them permission to campaign, and the charge was dropped.
TUACTION! received a $30 fine for campaigning at the polling location.
“I was incredibly surprised. I did not necessarily want TUACTION! to be disqualified, [but] at the same time, I did not think it was fair that TU Dream Team did not have the opportunity to have another polling location,” said Gäelle Amazan, former presidential candidate for TU Dream Team.
“I really want to put across that there weren’t any malicious intentions,” Patterson said. “It’s not like we were thinking, ‘Oh, we have a polling location, and they don’t.’”
Members of TUACTION! said they were grateful to TU Dream Team for being such great competitors.
“I hope we can work well together,” Patterson said. “The fire and passion they brought to this campaign, if put into TSG, will make us unstoppable.”
Members of TU Dream Team expressed their future support for TUACTION! in a Facebook message to their supporters.
“Now it is TUACTION!’s dedication, redefining spirit, education in the TSG structure and student issues, attitude and motivation to work for you all,” said Kevin Gerard, former candidate for vice president of external affairs of TU Dream Team.
TUACTION!’s motto throughout the campaign was “Committed to Achieving Results.”
The ticket’s platform calls for services, including working with law school students to provide legal services to students and creating a comprehensive Owl Guide for all of Temple’s resources and services.
Patterson said the first thing her ticket needs to do is manage the budget to make sure it has enough money for all the services it is planning.
“We want to focus on spending more money on things that directly affect students,” Patterson said.
Aside from planning the budget, Patterson wants to start next year with the mural project. One of TUACTION!’s platform points is to work with Tyler School of Art students to paint a mural on campus. Patterson plans to meet with Tyler’s dean to discuss setting up a class for these students to get credit for painting the mural.
DeSantis is going to start the year by talking to transportation services to set up possible shuttles to Old City, Center City and the Philadelphia International Airport.
Leroy is researching how to coordinate campus-wide community service events.
“We have the strength of voice to make sure these things happen,” Patterson said. “We are trying to look ahead, as well as now.”
Rebecca Hale can be reached at rebecca.hale@temple.edu.
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