There have been two election violations complaints filed in the 2026 Student Government elections. The Cooper-Hunter campaign was found responsible for beginning to campaign before the official campaign period. The Rotondo-Harris campaign was found not responsible for misusing Student Government resources.
According to deputy elections commissioner Madison Hahn, there was almost a third violation complaint filed in the 2026 elections. Hahn said the campaign wanted to know if it would be actionable due to how close filing the violation would be to elections results.
“The campaign decided to kind of avoid that and wait to see the results before they took further action,” Hahn said.
She did not specify which campaign was looking into filing a complaint or whom against.
During the 2025 Student Government elections, there were 10 election violation claims initially filed. Out of the 10, one was rescinded, one was withdrawn, and two were invalidated for misspelling the names of the candidate accused of the violation, but both were resubmitted.
Of the eight violations including the resubmitted complaints, there were hearings and decisions by the Constitutional Council for four of them. The Tkacs-Richardson campaign was found guilty of election fraud against the Henao campaign. Jordan Richardson was found guilty of running ads for his campaign on Instagram, which is prohibited under the Student Government codes.
The Constitutional Council found both the Tkacs-Richardson and Henao campaigns not guilty of campaigning prior to the official campaign period on the grounds of insufficient evidence. The Henao campaign was accused of reaching out to sororities before campaigning began. The Tkacs-Richardson campaign was accused of gaining support by repurposing a pre-existing Instagram account into the one for its campaign.
Prior to 2025, there were no recorded elections violations from 2021-2024. From 2005-2012 there were violations every year, with none on record from 2013-2018 before a resurgence in 2019 and 2020.
According to Hahn, she believes many of the violations in the 2025 Student Government elections resulted from candidates’ inability to work directly with each other to solve issues.
“I don't want to call it retaliation because it could have actually been real violations,” Hahn said. “But kind of the, ‘you don't want to work with me here, then I won't work with you either.'"
Elijah Butcher, chief justice of the Constitutional Council, said he believes a large contributing factor to the 2025 violations were issues with the Student Government codes.
“There were certain parts of the codes that just weren't very clear,” Butcher said. “What we've done since then is we went through all of the codes, especially the elections codes to update that.”
Changes to codes
There have been several changes made to the election violation process following the 2025 Student Government elections.
Liam Chandler, the deputy commissioner of the elections commission, said there has been an implementation of making sure there is a good faith effort made by the complaint’s filer. This means that before a violation can be filed, the complaint's filer must reach out to the candidate or campaign they’re accusing and give them a certain amount of time to fix the complaint.
"There have been a lot of good faith efforts filed this year and that has resolved a lot of what would be violations," Chandler said.
Butcher said one of the improvements made this year was giving the elections commission original jurisdiction in hearing and deciding violations cases. The Constitutional Council was changed into an appellate court for candidates or campaigns who don’t agree with the elections commission’s decisions.
In the 2025 Student Government elections and prior, the elections commission's job was to validate complaints, and the Constitutional Council conducted all hearings.
Hahn said the change has made the violations process more efficient and has been appreciated by everyone involved in Student Government elections.
According to elections commissioner Tristan Bonomo, the issues with election violations in 2025 encouraged everyone involved to avoid violations in the 2026 elections.
“We have great candidates that understand what happened last year and don't want that to happen again,” Bonomo said.
According to Hahn, for the 2026 elections, they are trying to encourage candidates to ensure their violation complaints are serious due to the elections commission being given the ability to dismiss cases.
Chandler said one of the biggest factors contributing to how many election violations are filed is the number of candidates. According to Chandler, he believes part of the reason for years with no violations is that in some of those years, candidates, specifically president, were running unopposed.
Hahn said that the number of candidates is likely a contributing factor in whether violations are filed, as more candidates create more competition.
“Having two or three candidates or more, it raises the stakes for the people running,” Hahn said. “I think it makes everything else a much bigger deal.”
Specifics of election violations
Bonomo said one of the biggest challenges in dealing with election violations comes from social media. He said due to the versatility of social media, people are less calculated with their choices, and it is a gray area when it comes to elections.
“It's the way a lot of our candidates communicate that it's really under a microscope,” Bonomo said. “I think with social media, there's so many things you can do, it's almost like Pandora's box in some ways.”
Out of the four violations heard in 2025, there were two regarding campaigning before the official campaign period, and one of the violations in 2026 was also on that basis. Bonomo thinks this is because candidates know well in advance that they are going to campaign and can get impatient about beginning.
According to Chandler, he believes that some people get confused about what they are and are not allowed to do before elections, which can lead to these types of violations.
Of the violation complaints filed in 2025 and 2026, the majority were filed by opposing candidates or campaigns. Chandler said he didn’t believe this was a campaign tactic because doing so would be a waste of everyone’s time when elections are already busy.
According to Butcher, he thinks candidates or those involved with campaigns are more likely to file complaints because they are likely to be familiar with the codes and won’t want others to cheat out of their own desire to win.
“If you're a candidate and another candidate breaks the rules in a way that gives them an advantage over you, of course you're gonna be the one to file the complaint because it hurt you,” Butcher said.
Hahn said she does believe violation complaints are used as campaign tactics, but not in a malicious way. She believes it's used to give candidates an opportunity to make campaigning more equal if they spot another campaign doing something wrong.
Future of election violations
Bonomo said to help prevent election violations, he’s been trying to be more open and transparent in his communications with candidates to make sure they know what constitutes a violation. He said the most important thing for him as elections commissioner is to look to and abide by the Student Government codes.
“The more you can stick to the documents that we have in place that set the rules and keep them, the less bias you're going to give off,” Bonomo said.
Chandler said he has no current strategy to reduce the number of violations to zero and is happy with how the 2026 elections have gone, despite the two violation claims.
“I would argue that having two violations filed so far this year is a pretty low number, and we're pretty happy with that, with five different people running for president,” Chandler said.
Hahn said creating strategies to decrease election violations in the future will most likely be a conversation the elections commission has following the 2026 Student Government elections. She said going forward, it’s important to make sure there is strong communication between those in the elections commission to help find solutions before violations are filed.
According to Hahn, in the future, the elections commission should focus on helping candidates understand what kind of outcomes their complaint will have before they file one, due to how emotional elections can be.
“Being able to answer questions and not advise but sort of explain the actual potential that their violation might have within the moment that it's being filed,” Hahn said.
According to Butcher, it’s unrealistic to expect zero election violations to occur, and he wants to place emphasis on keeping the candidates informed and ensuring the codes are clear and informative. Butcher also said it’s important that all the candidates read the Student Government codes closely to know what is expected of them.
“It is a lot, but that's kind of your job,” Butcher said. “If you're going to be in Student Government, you're going to run for an executive position, and it's really important that you know the codes.”