Story and Photo Illustration by Hannah Kampitan, Co-Editor-In-Chief
This story was edited on April 7, 2025 at 4:48 p.m. for name correction.
Cypress College’s Associated Students (AS) will redo their presidential election in April due to ambiguities in campaign guidelines that sparked conflict among candidates during the first election.
Three candidates ran for president in the 2025 General Election in early March: Jordy Galan, Alec Gibson, and Angel Hernandez. All three expressed issues and conflict with the integrity of the election, causing a redo to occur after Spring Recess.
The election process occurred within 30 days: candidate application and declaration, campaigning, a two-day voting period, and an appeals window. The voting period began March 12 and ended March 13, as candidates were given a five-day campaigning period while classes were in session. In observance of the election code outlined in the AS Bylaws, the AS Council approves the preliminary results and proceeds with finalization after seven days have been allotted for grievances and appeals, following the election committee’s posting of the preliminary results.
No appeals from the presidential candidates were submitted during the appeal window; AS advisors Joseph Shonkwiler and David Okawa decided before the 7-day period that a rerun for the presidential candidates and revised bylaws were needed.
According to Shonkwiler, the Election Coordinator, him and Okawa did not want the presidential results from the election to stand: “we [advisors] felt it wasn’t ethical…even if those three candidates wanted to come to us and let the results stand as it is, because of how much confusion there was regarding campaigning, there was no way we could have let the results stand with integrity…there were certain things we had to clarify within campaign guidelines that could have potentially changed the results.”
However, Okawa anticipated another presidential election independent from the campaign ambiguities. To win in any elected role, a candidate needs at least 50% of the total number of votes in their running category, plus one. According to Okawa, none of the three candidates who were up for president–Galan, Gibson, and Hernandez–reached that requirement.
“Because it’s a three-person election, a runoff election is a very real possibility,” he said. “To win the election with three candidates, though, I kind of use the term cannibalize…if every candidate is below 50+1, it becomes a runoff. What happens is that the top two vote-getters will then be the ones in the runoff. The third person, unfortunately, if they fall short–fall short [and are no longer in the race].”
Only two positions were contested: the presidency and the position for Vice President of Fiscal Affairs. As Shonkwiler said, the candidates for Vice President of Fiscal Affairs did not have concerns with the bylaws nor expressed concerns with the campaigning process, moving forward with ratification.
Once a redo was determined for the presidential race, Shonkwiler’s next action was to add and revise two articles in the AS Bylaws.
Shonkwiler and Okawa knew it was time to enact changes: “We took one look at them [the bylaws], and within about 15 seconds, we knew it was not sufficient to run an election with integrity. The [AS] Constitution can’t be amended on the fly, but the bylaws–on the other hand–can be amended, but there hasn’t been a comprehensive revision of those bylaws for quite some time,” Shonkwiler said.
The AS Bylaws is a twenty-three-page document that outlines regulations and rules for student government operations in 10 articles; the two articles that were amended were Article I: Standard Officer Guidelines and Co-Advisor Position and Article III: Election Code.
Okawa and Shonkwiler confirmed exsisting conflict between the candidates. Though they didn’t state more on it, the advisors recognized that the ambiguity of rules and regulations within the campaign bylaws triggered the inherent unfairness.
“There was conflict between the candidates inherently because the campaign guidelines were minimal. I can’t even use the word minimal, more like less than minimal,” Shonkwiler stated. “If a candidate comes to me and asks for clarification [during a campaign] and asks, ‘Am I allowed to do this?’ and I say yes, it’s technically not acceptable or fair. Now that candidate has information that another candidate technically doesn’t have…it’s nothing personal because we’re just answering questions as they come to us.”
Galan said a similar inference: “I kept asking Jay (Shonkwiler) questions to make sure I knew what I was doing. From what I heard, people were given different answers from what Jay told me…it was misunderstandings.”
Gibson responded on how important clarity is: “To have to ask those questions [to the advisors] is very important, and to have things clearly stated in the bylaws is important because it can prove very difficult to figure out what to actually do when you don’t have it clearly written.”
“It was more so questioning the rules that were already implied, and us asking over and over if it’s okay and getting insincere answers,” Hernandez said. That’s why they rewrote the bylaws.”
33 changes to the bylaws were made after the election. During the council’s Monday, March 24 meeting, Shonkwiler and Okawa presented the changes, which require a ⅔ vote by the council. All amendments were unanimously passed.
Article III Section 3 in the bylaws pertains to campaigning procedures. The bylaws under this section initially had two rules for candidates to follow: the 5-day time period for campaigning (upon which classes are regularly held) and the limitation of 50 candidate advertising flyers on campus.
After this election, eleven new rules for campaigning were added; consequently, the two existing rules before the change were revised. The 5-day time period designated for campaigning (Subsection A) added a sub-point: “unless a compressed election timeline is deemed critically necessary by the CCAS Advisors,” and the 50 advertising flyers (Subsection J) were reduced to 40 and need to be approved for posting by the Office of Student Life and Leadership.
The thirteen subsections are labeled as letters A to M. Three new subsections concern candidate interaction and conduct with opponents.
Subsections E, F, and L, directly from Article III Section 3 in the AS Bylaws:
E. Candidates are prohibited from referencing other candidates or CCAS Council members in their campaign materials.
F. Candidates are prohibited from slandering or participating in “smear campaigns” against other candidates. Campaigns should be based on candidate platforms and their individual merits.
L. Candidates found tampering with any other candidate’s campaign materials will automatically be disqualified from the election. This includes altering, covering, damaging, defacing, destroying, or removing campaign materials. Any member of the public or campus community found tampering with campaign materials will be reported to Campus Safety.
The institution of candidate-specific regulations, such as ‘smear campaigns,’ slandering, opponent referencing, and defacing, could reflect concerns from the first election.
When asked whether subsections E, F, and L of Article III Section 3’s campaigning rules were added because of specific concerns in the first election, Galan responded, “All I got to say is that it wasn’t involving me. No comment.”
In response to that same question, Gibson stated: “I would say yes. When we’re going around campus, we may or may not see things that we know are legal or not. We’re seeing conflicting information being brought from the bylaws. It was just a confusing process because it was my first time doing a campaign.”
Hernandez noted that it was made for fairness and clarity: “I’m not too sure what was brought to their attention, but I know it was made to make it a little more equal and fair to everybody, and prevent it from being a popularity contest. More so, a morality contest on who had the best statement on goals.”
Subsections G, H, I prohibit candidates from soliciting campaign assistance or endorsements from faculty/staff members (unless if said faculty/staff are currently enrolled students at Cypress College), academic departments/divisions, special programs, student service departments, and student organizations (unless said organizations have approved and up-to-date charters on file with the Office and Student Life and Leadership, and membership of the student organization votes to endorse the candidate by a two-thirds vote in an official meeting).
Galan agrees with the two-thirds rule on club endorsements: “I don’t want there to be a split between clubs…I never told clubs to endorse me; some of them did it on their own, mostly on Discord…Once I found out, I told them to delete it.”
In response to any changes to the next campaign, Hernandez said: “I initially campaigned with my classmates and peers, telling students around campus my statement and mission. I also gave out treats to students on campus, whether they voted or not. The only things we’re allowed to give out now are buttons, flyers, and stickers, which is great. I’ll be using that for this upcoming [redo] campaign.”
Subsections B, C, D, K, and M relate to advertising and endorsing. Subsections B and C prohibit current Cypress College Associated Students (CCAS) council members and candidates from endorsing other candidates, Subsection D prohibits candidates from campaigning during CCAS meetings, hours, and events hosted/sponsored by AS, Subsection K permits the passing out of approved candidate flyers in-person on campus, and Subsection M permits the use of any social media platforms for campaigning (though the official CCAS Instagram account may post fair content with approval).
“Now that the use of social media is clearly defined,” Gibson said, “I plan to keep up the same things I’m doing while adding in more of the social media aspect when it comes to clubs on campus, and getting in front of them more… A big part of what I was doing is reaching out to people…I found a lot of success with that.”
Aside from the 13 changes under campaigning, the remaining 17 changes included 10 new subsections under Article I’s new section, Section 2: Adherence to Core Values, and minimal changes under Article III, Section 1: Nominations, Section 2: Election Committee, and Section 4: Election.
“This isn’t anyone’s fault per se,” Shonkwiler said. “The council itself hadn’t made revisions to this in quite some time and hadn’t looked at it in a while…We tried to make sure that we hit as many blind spots as possible…The council thought it was fair, and they passed everything unanimously.”
Shonkwiler said that they aim for strong communication with all AS council members, that different layers of context to campaign guidelines will be addressed in future elections.
The Redo Election Ballot is tentatively scheduled to open Wednesday, April 9, 2025, at 9 a.m. and close Thursday, April 10, 2025, at 11:59 p.m.
