De Anza students elected current student senate Chair of Finance Pablo Zamorano and current senator Nadine Talaat as president and executive vice president from the near 1,900 ballots cast in the elections held by the De Anza Associated Student Body Senate.

Along with the elected executives, candidate Vince Mendoza was also elected as the incoming De Anza Student Trustee.

DASB Senate Elections Committee heard three formal grievances from candidates about possible campaign violations on May 31, the day DASB senate election results were announced. 

The REAL coalition accused one of the TORCH coalition candidates, Andrew Zhou of harassing student helper, Joey Zhou, no relation, over a poster location. Andrew Zhou gave an official apology at the meeting for his “immature statements,” but denied additional allegations of physical harassment. 

The senators ruled that any harassment between De Anza College students was not in their jurisdiction. They found that the issue had not interfered with the election since REAL eventually placed the poster in the disputed location.

The other two complaints dealt with REAL flyers being found in the cafeteria and on cars. The committee ruled that there was no evidence to suggest the flyers had been purposely placed there, acknowledging that a student helping REAL could have mistakenly left them. 

DASB Student Senate adviser John Cognetta went on record saying that he had seen laptops at a REAL coalition tent with the voting page open. When Cognetta confronted REAL members, he said he was told that the laptops were for personal use. 

No one was reportedly seen voting through those laptops, and a REAL member admitted to having accidentally left her browser open from voting earlier. 

According to campaigning rules, coalitions are not allowed to have any potential voting areas near their tents. 

No appeals were made on the committee’s rulings. 

DASB outgoing president and election committee chair, Arvind Ravichandran, 19, who is majoring in business administration, said he chose not to submit a grievance even though he had a video of misconduct when he ran for office last year. 

“In my experience, I take grievances really seriously,” Ravichandran said. “I didn’t think it would alter the election results and sometimes students misunderstand the rules.”

Due to the quickness of the grievance meeting, the Office of College Life released the elections results later that afternoon.