UF Student Government’s Supreme Court met Wednesday to address Hope Party members’ complaints surrounding absentee voting and Innovation Academy students’ voting rights.
Tyler Sklar, Hope’s ethics and accountability chair, first filed a case Sept. 27 arguing the votes cast in his absentee ballot were only partially counted in the Fall election.
On his ballot, Sklar voted for the four Hope candidates and independent Matthew White. But Sklar alleged only his vote for White was counted, citing the lack of change in total vote counts for other candidates after his ballot was confirmed to be counted by Chief Justice Hagen Turner.
Sklar filed a case Sunday against Supervisor of Elections Makena Romero and the elections commission about the absentee voting complaints. The previous case only concerned Sklar’s ballot while Sunday’s addressed the voting eligibility of Innovation Academy students and discrepancies in the total number of votes.
Sklar and his co-petitioners have requested a technical investigation into the vote totals, bringing to light the differences in votes.
“While the Court has claimed that they resolved my absentee ballot case by counting my vote, that is not the case in the actual vote totals,” Sklar wrote in an email statement to The Alligator.
The court granted Hope members the chance to argue the case Oct. 14.
Co-petitioners include Hope Party President Lane O'Rourke, who is represented by Hope Party staff member Kayla Arora, and Innovation Academy student Katie Gray.
“I was asked if I was a student, to which I said ‘yes,’” Gray wrote in her affidavit. “I was then asked if I was taking classes at UF, to which I responded ‘no’ due to my Innovation Academy status. I was told then that I was unable to vote.”
Gray is enrolled in transient classes at Santa Fe College but is not currently enrolled in any at UF. While returning Innovation Academy students are permitted to enroll in online classes for the Fall, the program orients them toward Spring and Summer semesters.
Sklar is also an Innovation Academy student. Unlike Gray, he is enrolled in Fall classes, he said, so he appeared on the voter rolls and was allowed to send in his absentee ballot.
The court debated the definition of a student, weighing the value of class enrollment status against general admittance into any program within the university. According to the student government constitution, every student of the university is a member of the student body and is entitled to vote in SG elections.
Court members ultimately determined it isn’t within their right to decide how a student is defined and agreed to direct the SG Senate to clarify the code.
“Even [the fact] that these discrepancies are going on calls for some kind of action,” Justice Adeline Gerken of how one Innovation Academy student’s vote counted, while another didn’t.
Sklar wrote in an email to the Alligator that Hope also intends to appeal the elections commission’s Monday decision to dismiss its complaints against Vision Party, Florida Blue Key, Alpha Tau Omega, Gamma Phi Beta and Theta Chi.
Contact Julia Miller at jmiller@alligator.org. Follow her on X @juliamill30.
Julia Miller is a freshman journalism student at UF working as a general asignment reporter on the metro desk. This is her first semester with The Alligator and in her free time, she enjoys watching movies, reading, and spending time with her friends.
