Editor’s Note: This page will be updated with the full results of the general election and runoff election as they are finalized.
April 6 at 12:10 p.m.
Run off election results: Brianna Bailey wins Speaker race and Nigel Walton recieves more votes despite Kaelen Thomas becoming president-elect
Today, election results for the two run off races — Atlanta Speaker of the Senate and University-Wide President — were released.
Brianna Bailey beat out Audrey Abraham for the Speaker position. Although Kaelen Thomas has become the de facto president-elect because his competitor Nigel Walton was disqualified (read The Signal’s coverage here), Walton recieved the most votes.
However, the Election Comission is now reporting that, “Because we have active investigations in the Presidential race we cannot provide a final outcome at this time. “
University-Wide President
Nigel Walton: 276 votes — 56.9% of the vote
Kaelen Thomas: 205 votes — 42.76% of the vote
Declined to vote for President: 4 votes — 0.82%
Atlanta Speaker of the Senate
Brianna Bailey: 207 votes — 46% of the vote
Audrey Abraham: 178 votes — 39.55% of the vote
Declined to vote for Speaker: 65 votes — 14.44%
March 17 at 10:45 a.m.
Presidential candidates react to the runoff
Kaelen Thomas and Nigel Walton head to a runoff despite each expecting to take the presidency in the initial vote March 10-12.
Thomas knew the chances of a runoff would be higher due to the number of candidates. He expected his competitor to be Walton.
“The hope was to win the election without the runoff, but of course with four candidates it’s very easy to go into a runoff,” he said. “If I was going into a runoff, I expected it to be Nigel but I did hope it was someone else.”
Thomas said he hoped it was someone else because he didn’t want the election to come between his friendship with Walton.
He also said his team is working on ways to get students to vote even though we’ve shifted to online classes for the remainder of the semester.
“The options are definitely limited. The traditional ways we would get people to vote, we can’t do that now because nobody will be on campus,” Thomas said. “The team, right now, is working on some new and innovative ways to reach out to students and I think social media will definitely be a platform that we use.”
Walton was excited to hear about the results but said his work isn’t done.
“I’m excited but I realized there is still more work to do and I’m ready to get that work done,” he said.
Walton is aware of the difficulties his campaign will have during Georgia State’s break from campus but he plans to use social media to his advantage as well.
“It’s going to be a struggle, we all know the coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot in a week,” he said. “One thing that I’m focused on is social media turnout and really using my network to get the votes that I need. We are going to try our best to reach out to every student in a fashion that we can get even better numbers than we had [last week].”
In an earlier update of this article, it was mentioned that — a runoff means that no single presidential candidate received more than 15% of the votes than the other candidates in last week’s election, according to Article 10(A)(b) of the SGA Election Code.
Walton received 12.8% more votes than Thomas, 25 votes shy of the 15% margin.
“I really did not expect to come 12.8% behind Nigel, but I don’t believe that’s not a gap we can’t close when it comes to the runoff,” Thomas said.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article didn’t include Kaelen Thomas’s reasoning as to why he hoped his runoff competitor would be someone other than Nigel Walton.
Updated at 7:30 p.m.
March 16 at 7:20 p.m.
Official SGA election results for the 91st administration
General Election Result Analysis
Tonight, runoff elections and winners were announced for the 2020-21 school year. The university-wide president and Atlanta speaker elections head to a runoff and the Atlanta EVP was decided.
Students will now have one last opportunity to decide who will represent Georgia State as the university-wide president, Kaelen Thomas or Nigel Walton.
Thomas built his campaign on his “F.I.R.S.T.” platform.
He plans to work toward bringing free feminine hygiene products to all campuses, increasing on-campus jobs, reducing student homelessness and promoting sustainability and transportation.
“An SGA President needs someone to stand for something, and keep students ‘first’, and that someone is me,” Thomas said in a recent interview with The Signal.
Walton uses “purpose” and “significance” to summarize his campaign.
He wants students to find their purpose during their time at Georgia State. Walton also wants students’ time at Georgia State to make a significant impact on their life.
“I want students to graduate and say they are one of the most complete human beings they can be because of the people, classes and professors at [Georgia State],” Walton said in a recent interview with The Signal.
Both candidates have extensive SGA experience.
Thomas became an SGA senator and chair of the Ad Hoc Committee in 2018. He was then promoted to head senator for the College of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Thomas is currently speaker of the Atlanta senate.
Walton joined SGA in 2018 and currently serves as a senator for the Atlanta campus.
Students will also have another opportunity to choose the Atlanta speaker. Audrey Abraham and Brianna Bailey are also headed to a runoff election.
Abraham has two years of SGA experience as a senator. She plans to promote SGA visibility to students and give students easier access to their campus resources.
Bailey has volunteered with the Academic Affairs Committee since last fall. She plans to bridge the gap between SGA, students, faculty and staff.
Both runoff elections will be held on pin.gsu.edu for 24 hours on April 2 from midnight to midnight.
Takia Tinsley was announced as the winner of the Atlanta EVP election against Spencer DeHart.
Tinsley joined SGA last fall and currently holds the position as head senator of the College of Arts and Sciences. He ran on the platform to make Georgia State G.R.E.A.T. (Generous, Responsible, Engaged, Accepting and Thankful).
The final vote count across all campuses this election was 1,164 votes. Voter turnout this year was lower than the past two elections.
The 2018 election reported a total of 1,475 votes and the 2019 election reported 2,526 votes, according to The Signal’s previous election results.
The full results of the election are available below, which includes senators and some vacancies. The application for these seats can be found on pin.gsu.edu and opens March 27 until all positions are filled, with priority review beginning April 9.
The roles of Communications Director and Finance Director on the Atlanta campus and University-wide Senate Clerks will be decided following the application period of March 17 through April 9, also available on pin.gsu.edu.
Winning Candidates and Vacancies
PRESIDENT
University-Wide: (RUNOFF) Kaelen Thomas and Nigel Walton
CAMPUS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENTS
Atlanta – Takia Tinsley
Alpharetta – Cole Greenwood
Clarkston – Kyle Kath
Decatur – Mariya Cummings
Dunwoody – Michelle Martinez
Vacancies: Newton EVP
CAMPUS SPEAKERS OF THE SENATE
Atlanta – (RUNOFF) Audrey Abraham Brianna Bailey
Decatur – Dominique Whitehurst
Vacancies: Alpharetta, Clarkston, Dunwoody and Newton Speakers
ATLANTA SENATE
College of Arts and Sciences Senators
Saadh Ahmed, Mario Calcagno, Ashleigh Cochran, Matthew Daniel, Shelby Horton, Morgan Ward
Vacancies: Five undergraduate and two graduate senators
J. Mack Robinson College of Business Senators
Matthew Adjin-Tettey, John Le, Enrique Pujals, Sarah Saied
Vacancies: One undergraduate and one graduate senators
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Senator
Chinelo Moneke
Vacancies: One graduate senator
School of Public Health Senator
Hewitt Mesfin
Vacancies: One graduate senator
College of Education and Human Development Senator
Mackenzie Minter
Vacancies: One graduate senator
College of the Arts
Vacancies: Two undergraduate senators
Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions
Vacancies: One undergraduate senator and one graduate senator
PERIMETER SENATES
Alpharetta
Vacancies: All six senate seats
Clarkston
Vacancies: All six senate seats
Decatur
Vacancies: All six senate seats
Dunwoody
Senator – Betenia Tuwe
Vacancies: Five of six senate seats
Newton
Senators – Noor Bakhatawar, Jimmy Davis, Lavendar Harris, Gabriel Pelayo
Vacancies: Two of six senate seats
Vote Totals
PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Total – 1164 votes
By Candidate
Nigel Walton – 507 votes, 43.56%
Kaelen Thomas – 358 votes, 30.76%
Nahom Taye – 214 votes, 18.38%
Carlos Porter – 32 votes, 2.75%
Declined to Vote for President – 53 votes, 4.55%
By Demographic
Perimeter Campuses – 136 votes, 11.68%
College of Arts and Sciences – 420 votes, 36.08%
J. Mack Robinson College of Business – 247 votes, 21.22%
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies – 87 votes, 7.47%
College of the Arts – 79 votes, 6.79%
College of Education and Human Development – 65 votes, 5.58%
Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions – 48 votes, 4.12%
School of Public Health – 23 votes, 1.98%
ATLANTA EVP RACE
Takia Tinsley – 697 votes, 68.33%
Spencer DeHart – 183 votes, 17.94%
ATLANTA SPEAKER RACE
Brianna Bailey – 352 votes, 34.51%
Audrey Abraham – 304 votes, 29.80%
Nia Cole – 99 votes, 9.71%
Peter Minetos – 90 votes, 8.82%
March 16 at 5:25 p.m.
Audrey Abraham and Brianna Bailey head to a runoff election for SGA Atlanta speaker
According to an email from Atlanta SGA advisor Gail Sutton, Audrey Abraham and Brianna Bailey will be entering a run-off election for SGA Atlanta speaker.
Both runoff elections for university-wide president and Atlanta speaker will be held April 2. Election results will be finalized on April 6.
March 16 at 3:20 p.m.
Kaelen Thomas and Nigel Walton head to a runoff election for SGA president
Multiple sources have confirmed that Kaelen Thomas and Nigel Walton will be entering a run-off election for university-wide Student Government Association president, ahead of the official vote count being released.
Current University-wide President Jazmin Mejia and Atlanta SGA advisor Gail Sutton have both confirmed this despite official results being released later today.
“Primary Election results will be sent later today to all candidates, all SGA officers, to student media and to the SGA website,” Sutton said.
Results have not yet been released for the Atlanta executive vice president and Atlanta speaker races.
While the official vote count has not yet been published, since there a runoff has been confirmed this means no single presidential candidate received more than 15% of the votes than the other candidates in last week’s election, according to Article 10(A)(b) of the SGA Election Code.
According to a post on Thomas’s Facebook page which announced the runoff, voting for will take place online through the Panther Involvement Network April 2.
In an email this morning from Sutton, she said a WebEx meeting will be held with Thomas and Walton to review the rules on March 30.
Candidates are not allowed to campaign prior to the meeting, as it constitutes an election violation, according to that email.
According to Cassie Turner, election commissioner for the University-Wide Presidential and Newton EVP elections, official election results will be published today at 5 p.m.
