The Golden Slate Warriors ticket are set to become the next leaders of Undergraduate Student Government (USG) at UChicago in an election cycle involving multiple protests and vote deductions for several candidates. Both during and after the voting period, several complaints were filed against each of the three executive tickets for campaign violations, resulting in vote deductions for both the upLIFT and Chicago tickets after a hearing on April 17.

Golden Slate, comprising third-year Jefferson Lind as president and second-year Ariana Ukaonu as executive vice president (EVP), earned 421 of the 1164 ballots cast in the 2023 USG elections. Lind is currently USG’s EVP, while Ukaonu serves as USG’s vice president of advocacy. Results become official on April 21 at 4 p.m., which marks the end of the one-week period in which appeals and complaints can be submitted to USG’s Elections and Rules (E&R) Committee.

After a complaint of a rule violation is submitted, the E&R committee notifies the defendant via email and sets a date for a public hearing. Within these hearings, complainants are able to present evidence supporting the allegations and respondents’ evidence to the contrary. Both parties are then able to speak in the rules’ interpretation discussion, which determines the basis for and severity of the infraction. After this, E&R enters private deliberations and creates a ruling to be publicized after the hearings conclude.

The runner-up, upLIFT Slate, received 328 votes, though the total was reduced to 324.72 after the ticket incurred a 1 percent vote deduction for violating the University Posting Policy by placing a campaign poster on a lamppost. E&R conducted a hearing for the violation three hours after voting closed on April 14, but neither presidential candidate Julia Brestovitskiy nor EVP candidate Elijah Jenkins was present, nor were the complainants, the Chicago Ticket.

Commonly referred to as Chicago for U, the Chicago Ticket received 307 votes before complaint hearings held on April 17. The ticket featured second-year presidential candidate Ben Vacher and third-year EVP candidate Alex Norton.

The first complaint against the Chicago Ticket alleged that its members violated Article II.1 of E&R’s spring 2023 election policies by exceeding the $200 cap allotted for campaign spending. After voting concluded on Friday afternoon, the Chicago Ticket posted the email notification of the violation, sent by E&R chair R. E. Stern on Friday, to its Instagram story. The text “Stop the Steal” was overlaid on a screenshot of the email. The Chicago Ticket received an additional complaint for publicizing the first complaint in violation of the E&R confidentiality rules found in House Rules Title IV(J). This email notification was also shared on the ticket’s Instagram with the caption “#fairelections,” prompting another confidentiality violation.

The April 17 hearings were attended by the E&R Committee members, all candidates from the Golden Slate and upLIFT tickets, and Alex Norton of the Chicago Ticket. Chicago Ticket presidential candidate Ben Vacher was not present. Proceedings began with the two E&R complaints against the Chicago Ticket for the confidentiality violations. The Chicago Ticket was assessed a 3-percent vote deduction for the first incident and an additional 10-percent deduction for the repeated infraction.

The E&R Committee proceeded with the upLIFT ticket’s complaint against the Chicago Ticket for exceeding the $200 spending cap and for failing to declare pizza and T-shirts on their official budgets. While E&R found no evidence that the Chicago Ticket had brought pizza to campaign events or failed to declare pizza-related expenses in its campaign budget, the committee found that the ticket’s failure to disclose the cost of T-shirts worn by students staffing the Chicago ticket’s campaign booth violated the spending cap. The ticket received an 8-percent deduction for this violation.

Shortly before private deliberation began, Norton left the Zoom meeting, stating that the Chicago Ticket would “plead the Fifth” to all future allegations.

The Chicago Ticket also filed complaints against both upLIFT and Golden Slate Warriors of defamation and unwarranted personal attacks in violation of Election Code Article III, specifically citing quotes from both tickets identifying the Chicago Ticket candidates as members of the UChicago chapter of Delta Upsilon (DU), now known as the Order of the Iron Key. On LinkedIn, Vacher lists “Recruitment Chair – Delta Upsilon Fraternity” on a set of “Activities and Societies” describing his time at the College; Norton claimed not to have been a full member due to failure to pay member dues.

After polls closed, the Chicago ticket changed their Instagram bio from “A Vote for Chicago is a Vote for You – Vote Now” to “Moose Party,” the name associated with the satirical ticket historically run by the Delta Upsilon fraternity. The Moose Party has been a longstanding staple of the USG election cycle; a 2017 Maroon News article reported the end of its 23 consecutive years of running. The Party’s last official election bid was in 2018. Since 1994, these campaign platforms have featured “joke” proposals, such as 2010’s moat and dragon guard installation proposal, 2012’s “make the Midway a trailer park,” and 2006’s proposal to turn the Regenstein A-Level into a brewery. In many years, the Moose Party has been the only opposition to the ticket which was elected, something previous iterations of the ticket have taken pride in.

The Chicago Ticket’s defamation complaints against the Golden Slate Warriors did not meet the burden of proof, according to E&R. Evidence against upLIFT, presented by the E&R Committee after Norton’s departure from the hearing, fell short of a full infraction but incurred an official warning. After all hearings concluded, the Chicago Ticket held a vote count of 242.53, incurring a cumulative 21-percent deduction.

According to E&R chair Stern, the number of complaints was surprising, but not unexpected, given the highly contested race. “USG elections usually feature some amount of 1% vote deductions for late budget submissions, but this has not been well publicized in the past,” Stern wrote in an email to The Maroon. “To my knowledge, 6 well-formatted complaints is a high number but not unprecedented.”

Cabinet members and College Council (CC) representatives were also elected on Friday, with results to be confirmed April 21.

For cabinet, first-year Tim Lu received 685 votes for vice president for advocacy. Third-year Nina Hafner received 670.23 votes for vice president for campus life, though she received a 1-percent deduction for “failing to submit a budget in a timely manner.” The same penalty was given to first-year Meera Dasgupta, who received 663.3 votes for vice president for student affairs. All three candidates ran unopposed.

Third-year Evelyn Li, the current vice president for campus life, is set to become the next trustee and faculty governance liaison with 476 votes. Third-year Jackson Lee, her sole opponent, received 228 votes.

The four CC candidates on the ballot from the Class of 2024 are all set to be reelected to their posts. Darya Foroohar received 154 votes, Ash Arian 152, Aman Majmudar 100, and Aaron Wineberg 81. Write-in candidate Greg García, who received 11 votes, is currently slated to take the final seat.

Second-year Aya Hamza, a current CC representative, was the only candidate from the Class of 2025 to run for a CC seat. She earned 196 votes. The leading vote-getters among the write-in candidates are Ezinne Mba (20 votes), Danielle Lopez (13 votes), Jake Fritts (seven votes), and Sean Moore (seven votes).

Jenkins received the most votes from the Class of 2026 but earned a 1-percent deduction for failing to submit a budget in a timely manner. His provisional total stands at 215.82 votes. Lu received 137 votes but would be unable to accept a CC seat because of his election to vice president of advocacy, meaning the remaining seats are set to go to Juan Simon Angel (135 votes), Logan Toé (121 votes), Sebastian Davis (119 votes), and Surya Chinnappa (114 votes).

Dasgupta ran for CC in addition to vice president for student affairs and received another 1-percent deduction for not submitting a budget on time. Regardless, her total of 107.91 votes would not have given her a CC seat unless upLIFT had won the race for executive slate.