ASB ballot mishap; candidate disqualification

On Wednesday, Feb. 12, Samo’s Associated Student Body (ASB) held their annual election for the upcoming school year’s Executive Board. Unlike years prior, this year, the presidential candidate listed ran unopposed, with no option for an alternative candidate.

The ASB Ballot was originally missing an “other” option when voting for president. The red star in the top right corner shows the requirement for this section of the ballot to be filled.

In ASB elections, any unopposed candidate must receive two-thirds of the votes to receive their position. The “other” option, generally offered on the ballot, allows students (who must vote for every position on the ballot to vote for any candidate at all) an alternative.  

M House principal Lissette Bravo, the administrator in charge of overseeing ASB, was responsible for creating the election Google Form that students received. She claimed that she had multiple eyes on the form, so the fact that there was no “other” option under the presidential candidate was accidentally overlooked. Principal Marae Cruce was one of the people who viewed this form before it was published.

“Do I think it would be fair to require everybody to vote for one person? No,” Cruce said. “That’s why there should be an optional button.”

After this mistake was brought to Cruce’s attention at the end of flex time (right after students voted), the form was changed to include an “other” option. There was then an announcement made over the loudspeaker that allowed anyone to go back through their form and edit their responses. As some people said that they didn’t hear the announcement, the following week, the form was republished, announced again over the loudspeaker on Tuesday, Feb. 18 and emailed to students. 

Student Maya Jarmakani (’26) felt that regardless of one's candidate preferences, they should be given the option when voting.

“I found it kind of odd,” Jarmakani said. “I feel like there wasn’t another option; even if you didn’t want Sadie, you could only vote for her because she was the only option. But personally, with my opinions, I wanted Sadie to be president.”

Only about two weeks before the initial form was released to students, intended presidential candidate Gelila Mihret (’26) was disqualified from the ASB election for missing the deadline to submit the required "Election Information 2025" Google Form. At an official candidacy meeting after school, where candidates who intended to run sign a contract abiding to campaign rules, a Google Form was released online (in past years it was signed on a physical copy in this same candidacy meeting). After the meeting, Mihret was given until the end of the day to complete the form. Mihret claims her phone died right after the meeting and her charger was at a friend's house (she provided screenshots she believed to prove this), which led her to submit the form the following morning at around 8 am. 

Mihret was informed of her disqualification by ASB advisor Stefani Tovar, Bravo and Cruce two days later. Mihret has been in ASB since seventh grade, and class president for two consecutive years. She has served on the ASB cabinet for all of her years in high school and middle school. Having already paid for the campaigning materials, she decided to appeal the decision of her disqualification twice. Mihret was ultimately denied entry into the presidential race. 

“I think that there needs to be consideration to the fact that this is an application for a leadership position, and if we're going to be going above and beyond for leaders on campus, this is just like any job application,” said Cruce. “You haven't completely finished an application until you've done all those steps.”

Tovar declined to comment on any individual students, however she felt that this disqualification process was standard.

“We do have eligibility requirements and as far as eligibility, we have disqualified other students. That’s across the board,” Tovar said. 

While the decision by administration was made because of Mihret’s failure to complete the candidacy form in time, according to Mihret, she believes other factors contributed to her inability to run.

“One irresponsible action just painted me as an irresponsible person, when I've proven time and time again I'm not,” said Mihret. “I love ASB. It's a passion of mine. It's more than a class to me, and for all that I've done—all that I've worked for and all of my dedication and hard work—to be not even taken into consideration when making a decision like that, made it feel a little biased.”

For about a month in the first semester of her Junior year, Mihret was placed on academic probation, to which she attributes to personal, outside-of-school reasons (academic probation simply serves as a formal warning that a student’s academic performance is below minimum standards). This event was brought up again during her disqualification meeting. Mihret expressed that she felt Tovar was using her past academic probation to undermine her abilities as a candidate. 

“It just felt like being attacked all at once. [...] They're bringing these things up while literally inducing a panic attack, like to bring all of those things up and not just tell me, ‘Hey, you're disqualified because of this. It's unfortunate. I'm sorry, but it's how it is,’ just seemed very unfair, and it seemed very biased. It felt personal,” Mihret said. [...] “It felt like this form wasn't the only reason I was being disqualified.” 

During the 2023-2024 school year, ASB for the first time allowed students from outside the class to run for executive positions. Before this change, students needed one prior year of experience in ASB to be eligible to run. When asked in an interview last year, Tovar championed the change as representing the core ideals of the program. 

“The decision to make these changes was driven by a desire for a more inclusive and competitive process that recognizes leadership in various forms,” Tovar said. 

Current Vice President Ry Bardacke (’25) believes Tovar’s decision to disqualify Mihret contradicts what ASB was working to improve.

“If [Tovar] really wanted to have an election where there's more than one person and it's competitive, then she would have done everything she could have to let Gelila run,” Bardacke said.