Undergraduate Student Government election results have been delayed for over a month due to an Office of Student Life investigation.
Credit: Lantern File Photo
A little over a month following the Undergraduate Student Government’s 2025 presidential election, students are still waiting for a winner.
The campaign period for the presidential race began Feb. 23 and ended March 5, though election results were postponed due to ongoing USG Judicial Panel hearings, with no set date for when results would be announced, according to a March 6 USG Instagram post.
Following an election cycle filled with accusations of misconduct against all candidates, which saw one presidential disqualification prior to the election and another after, the results were ultimately delayed following university intervention. Presidential candidate Oliver Griffith, whose campaign had been disqualified March 24 despite Griffith continuing to assert his innocence throughout Judicial Panel proceedings, reached out to the Office of Student Life to request a review of the election process.
A second-year in molecular genetics, Griffith said he felt it was important to get the university involved because of the unprecedented nature of this year’s race, adding that this election cycle has seen 27 candidates — including presidential, vice presidential and senatorial — disqualified.
Current USG President Bobby McAlpine, a fifth-year in regional planning and political science, could not confirm the exact number of disqualifications from this election cycle, but said if one campaign is disqualified, its entire slate — including presidential, vice presidential and senatorial candidates — is disqualified per USG’s election bylaws.
“Although it sounds like a lot, this could have come from the disqualification of a single campaign that that number of candidates were knowingly affiliated with,” McAlpine said in a text message.
Griffith said the Judicial Panel has exhibited uncharacteristic scrutiny compared to previous years.
“We have not seen a Judicial Panel act in this manner before,” Griffith said. “Historically, Judicial Panels have acted with restraint, knowing that it’s in the interest of everyone to have the voices of the student body represented. The people who received the most votes should win an election, and it should not be decided by a group of nine unelected students.”
Griffith said despite the unusual nature of this year’s election cycle, the Office of Student Life’s involvement with USG is not atypical. He said he contacted a few members within the office to express perceived “inconsistencies” within this year’s election and ask for verification that “the rules were followed.”
“This is just a routine review the Office of Student Life does,” Griffith said. “This isn’t any sort of unprecedented or unusual kind of event happening right now. As we’ve seen generally — just in this past year, for example — normally, when there are inconsistencies, or when the Undergraduate Student Government doesn’t have the ability to directly do something, the Office of Student Life will do a normal, routine review and just check in.”
In his outreach to Student Life, Griffith said he never asked for anyone to reinstate his campaign, though he said he hopes for that outcome after the review is concluded.
The Office of Student Life paused the finalization of election results April 4, which are now pending a “full review by the university’s administration,” according to an email from Melissa Shivers, vice president of Student Life, obtained by The Lantern.
In an email addressed to members of USG, Shivers said because it is the vice president of Student Life’s responsibility to “ensure that USG’s bylaws and procedures are properly and consistently applied and followed,” the university has decided to “be thorough rather than fast.”
“Please know how very seriously I take our university’s shared governance system, and I appreciate your ongoing commitment to upholding our collective responsibility to ensure that we uphold all bylaws, procedures and requirements,” Shivers said.
University spokesperson Dave Issacs said in an email the review is due to “concerns raised about the administration of the 2025 Undergraduate Student Government Election process.”
“For that reason, Student Life has directed the USG Judicial Panel to pause the certification and announcement of the results pending a full review by the university’s administration,” Issacs said.
Context
March 5, Amjad Almuti, a third-year in psychology and USG presidential candidate, filed a motion accusing Griffith’s campaign of violating two USG election bylaws by placing campaign palm cards under the windshields of cars in the Buckeye Lot — located at 2701 Fred Taylor Drive.
The Judicial Panel said it lacked sufficient evidence to find Griffith’s campaign guilty of any alleged violations, according to its March 19 opinion obtained by The Lantern.
Almuti appealed this decision in light of new evidence, which the Judicial Panel of Appeals granted, thereby remanding the case to the original Panel, according to its March 24 opinion.
The opinion states Almuti presented new video footage of a car belonging to Patrick Jotevski — a senator on Griffith’s slate — entering the Buckeye Lot, and two individuals he asserts were Jotevski and another member of the Griffith-More campaign exiting the vehicle and approaching cars.
Despite the appellate Panel’s decision to remand the case, Griffith maintains Almuti’s new evidence was “fictitious.” He said the submitted footage was grainy and that Jotevski was in class at the time Almuti claimed he was in the Buckeye Lot.
“We’ve just seen time and time again that Amjad Almuti is willing to do whatever it takes to try to use lawfare against us, instead of hoping the right person gets to represent the student body,” Griffith said.
Almuti said ultimately, the Judicial Panel had the final say when it came to evaluating the evidence presented and eventually disqualifying the Griffith-More campaign.
“I mean, we’re not the ones that disqualified him — the Judicial Panel is the one that disqualified him based on the evidence that we provided,” Almuti said.
In a statement, Almuti said his campaign worked with the Ohio State University Police Department to retrieve its evidence of the incident.
“At this point, Mr. Griffith has no substantive excuse beyond claiming that the allegations are falsified,” Almuti said.
In the remanded trial, the Panel found Griffith’s campaign guilty of 35 violations of Article II.A.b.v., resulting in a total of $1,750 in penalties. Because this fine exceeded the Griffith-More campaign’s budget, the decision resulted in the campaign’s disqualification, according to the Panel’s March 27 opinion.
The opinion states the Griffith-More campaign is responsible for violating the university’s chalk and signage policy, which states temporary signage is limited to only designated indoor open-posting boards and outdoor kiosks, according to the Facilities Operations and Development website.
“Had this case involved a handful of misplaced cards or a single incident, we may have reached a different conclusion. But the sheer volume of campaign materials distributed—2,400 palm cards—demands accountability,” the March 27 opinion states.
Griffith said he thinks the verdict reached in this decision was different from that of the Panel’s original decision because two justices were replaced with new ones.
“Part of the reason why the opinion was so different in the same case [is] it was a new group of justices,” Griffith said. “In remanded cases, it’s supposed to be the same group of justices, however, the Judicial Panel put in two new justices on the Panel.”
As such, Griffith appealed this decision April 2. Though the Panel found one ground for his appeal to be valid, it ultimately upheld its March 27 decision, according to its April 2 opinion.
“In conclusion, while the Panel of Appeals finds that the $50-per-violation fine was excessive and reduces it to $15, the Griffith–More campaign’s total value still exceeds the $2,000 spending cap,” the opinion stated. “The disqualification remains in effect.”
Ultimately, Griffith said since the USG president and vice president appoint other student body representatives and spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of students’ fees, there is a lot at stake for the university community.
“The idea that someone can lie to the Judicial Panel and get to decide alongside a group of nine unelected students who [is] the best representation of the student body — I think that’s wrong,” Griffith said. “I think we can all agree whoever got the most votes, whether it’s me or another candidate, should be the student body president. That’s what I believe in.”
McAlpine said he supports the Panel’s decision and is concerned about the amount of infighting among USG members this election cycle.
“It is quite disappointing to see the sheer amount of claims and court cases that have been brought for and against teams,” McAlpine said. “Every single person running for any position within the undergraduate student government should always keep helping/serving the student body at the forefront of their minds and the top of their agendas.”
