At a preliminary hearing Wednesday, the UF Student Government Supreme Court dismissed a Hope Party appeal alleging fraudulent vote counts, citing the lack of strong evidence of proof of injury.
Tyler Sklar, Hope’s ethics chair and the case’s co-petitioner, alleged his absentee vote hadn’t been counted because of mathematical discrepancies from before and after his votes were counted.
Another Innovation Academy student, Katie Gray, the case’s other co-petitioner, reported she’d been turned away from the polls for not being registered in Fall classes, though declaring in an affidavit that she is a current UF student.
The court said at an Oct. 7 hearing it didn’t have the authority to define what a student is, halting action until the Senate provides a definition of a “student.”
In a Monday email, Jerome Scott II, the assistant director of SG advising and operations, told Sklar the election result numbers reported the number of ballots, not individual votes, meaning Sklar’s vote was counted. Sklar told Scott while he appreciated the distinction, he is still pursuing the case because of differences between the vote and ballot totals.
The email was brought up at Wednesday’s hearing, and the five justices agreed to trust Scott’s assessment of the situation.
“Regardless of party, candidate, or outcome, every student has an interest in knowing that a vote lawfully cast is accurately accounted for, and that questions about the integrity of the official tally receive a meaningful answer,” Sklar wrote in an email to the Senate and The Alligator.
Justice Grace Kessinger stated that she believed the petitioner was trying to allude that “something is going wrong,” but lacked strong evidence to show substantive wrongdoing.
It’s unclear whether the petitioners will continue after the case’s Wednesday dismissal.
Contact Sofia Garcia at sofiagarcia@alligator.org. Follow her on X at @sconsuelogarcia.
Sofia Garcia is a first-year journalism and political science double major at UF and serving as the student government reporter for Fall 2026. This is her first semester at The Alligator. In her free time, she enjoys listening to music, playing video games, or connecting with her friends and family back home in Miami.
