The story was updated at 11:02 a.m. April 3 to provide the number of votes each candidate received.
The Student Government Association election process was delayed due to an unclear interpretation of governing documents. Some students are questioning the validity of this decision.
The top two candidates for SGA president participated in a runoff election Tuesday.
The candidates who received the most amount of votes were Jordan Tarter, English junior, with 231 votes, and Randy Gipson-Black, religion/political science junior, with 183 votes. The original election was March 22-23 among candidates Tarter, Gipson-Black and Rodney Smith, religion/philosophy junior, who received 154 votes.
The results of the election were not available at presstime.
Joanna Whipple, election commission representative and chief justice of student court, said no candidate received a legal majority of votes. The constitution defines “majority” as more than half when referencing meetings but not when referencing elections.
The election rules read that the candidate who receives the most votes, unless there are four or more candidates, is the winner.
In the event that there are four or more candidates, the election rules read that a majority (50 percent plus one) wins, but the document also reads, “in all other elections, the candidate(s) that receives the most votes shall be declared the victor.”
Whipple refused to comment Monday.
David Hall, music education/sociology sophomore, said he is concerned about transparency during the election. There was a meeting Friday between the chief justice and administrators and another meeting Monday with Tarter’s campaign and student officials. The decision was made to proceed with the runoff election.
Lilly Bermudez, associate dean of students and senate adviser for SGA, said the election commission met Friday to discuss the election. The election rules read: “upon closing of the polls, on the last voting day, the election commission shall convene within 24 hours in order to either validate or invalidate the results of an election.”
Because of this policy, it was decided that the runoff would occur.
“My question is, why keep this information in email, behind closed doors, without administrative oversight supporting, if it’s the right interpretation?” Hall said.
Hall inquired as to why administrators had not publicly stated the conflict between the election rules and the constitution.
“All candidates campaigned on transparency, and, right now, things just don’t feel transparent at all,” he said Sunday. “These are questions the student body deserves to know from all parts of government, including the judicial branch.”
Lucas Freeman, political science/history sophomore and public relations secretary, said he can see both sides of the argument, but he thinks student officials should have upheld election rules because it is the most recent legal document.
“The way I’m reading it, whoever had the ‘most votes’ should win,” Freeman said. “But, in the constitution, there is a definition that conflicts with the election rules by stating that the candidate with the ‘majority of the legal votes cast’ wins. I would say that the intent of the writing of the election rules and the acceptance of the Senate of the rules would say that the intent would win over the constitution.”
Freeman also said he understands why student officials decided to uphold the constitution, but he said the intent behind the election rules is more important.
“I’m not an expert or a scholar, but I think the ‘most votes’ was the intent,” he said. “Therefore, the candidate with the most votes should win.”
The SGA constitution also reads that the election should have initially occurred the second week back from Spring Break, rather than the first. The constitution reads: “high officers of the OCU-SGA shall be elected annually by paper or electronic ballot by the Oklahoma City University student body in the second week after Spring Break.”
Lesley Black, former associate dean of students, said this came from a mistake in scheduling.
Gipson-Black said Sunday he wasn’t surprised by the news that there would be a runoff election. 
“I expected it,” he said. “I expected it mainly because there’s three candidates who are all, in my opinion, well-qualified and well-connected with the campus. I kind of went into it with the mindset that there was going to be a runoff.”
Gipson-Black said there was a difference between the way students talked about the candidates this year compared to how they talked last year, when Gipson-Black received 75 percent of the vote.
“After talking to people, I realized how many people were being drawn away from me by either Rodney or Jordan,” he said.
Gipson-Black and Tarter said they were not told the official counts of the first election, and they were not made aware of the decision-making process of the runoff. They said they were sent the statements from the constitution stating that there must be a runoff within seven days of the election.
Tarter said she was surprised by the runoff, but she understands the election rules to be an interpretation of the constitution. 
“I don’t see them as contradicting, so I’m unsure as to why we are doing the runoff since there were only three candidates,” Tarter said.
Tarter also said she hopes the next administration is diligent in adjusting the phrasing of the rules to make things more clear and less open to interpretation.
Editor’s note: Proofreader Tyler Patton is Jordan Tarter’s campaign manager. He did not participate in the writing of this story.
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