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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 2015)
FRIDAY MARCH 6, 2015 I SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 I © 2015 STUDENT MEDIA I ©THEBATTONLINE *»- I* SM.. ; . ? ; J v ', ' V: Wii-' ■■ ^ f *y Ritchie Lawrence Lanz Alders Wilder. m vMi Revote finalizes i is™ J results in front of the new E. King Gill statue ; I ■: ■ ' I i *“• ..Si ■? jpE ills i&ii ■ is m-i w&w& ik« Yell Leaders ...... ..., ELECTIONS Ritchie replaces Cook in revote that garnered more eligible ballots Benigno remains SBP-elect The J-Court appeal involving SBP candidates Michael Murtha (left) and Joseph Benigno (right) ended in Benigno retaining his positron as SBP-elect. J-Court ruling opts not to overturn election commissioner's decision By Lindsey Gawlik & John Rangel ■W- oseph Benigno will remain A&M’s I student body president-elect, after I A&M’s Judicial Court ruled no action would be taken to reverse the elec tion commissioner’s decision not to fine Benigno’s campaign. J-Court’s Thursday evening announce ment resolved several election issues that centered around a Benigno campaign video titled “Go(Pro) with Joe.” Former SBP can didate Michael Murtha’s team asserted Be nigno should be fined for several election regulation and state traffic violations seen in the video — an argument struck down by the court’s plurality opinion. The court’s plurality opinion also found no fault in Election Commissioner Emma .. Douglas’ decision to not fine Benigno for his actions in the video. Murtha’s team argued Douglas’ actions were biased in light of her earlier decision, to fine former SBP candidate Isaiah Tsau for election violations. Judicial Court’s Murtha v. Douglas & Be nigno decision addressed four issues in total, but the case often saw the court’s nine justices closely split on the ruling’s specifics. In nar row 5-4 majorities, five voted in Murtha’s fa vor on whether or not off-campus campaign ing did occur and five voted not to reverse Douglas’ actions as election commissioner. “This is by far the longest, most compli cated and closest decision in Judicial Court history,” wrote chiefjustice Brenton Cooper in an emailed statement. The court voted 8-1 that Douglas showed no bias toward Benigno when she did not levy fines against his campaign, but did fine Tsau for election violations. The vote went 6-3 to side with Benigno on whether his al leged state traffic violations should result in levied fines from Douglas. Though he said Benigno would be a quali fied SBP, Murtha said he is disappointed and thinks the ruling sets a precedent in future elections that rules can be broken without SBP ON PG. 2 By Jennifer Reiley w The votes are in, and a student who is not in the Corps will once again serve as one of A&M’s five Yell Leaders. The results of the Yell Leader revote were announced at the new E. King Gill statue Thursday. The revote comes after Yell Lead ers nullified the original Feb. 19-20 election, citing questionable tabulating methods. The results of the revote were the same as the original vote held by the Student Govern ment Association, with one exception — ca det Ben Ritchie replaced cadet Kyle Cook. Ritchie, who currently serves as a Junior Yell Leader, is joined by non-reg Steven Lanz as well as cadet and current Junior Yell Leader Zachary Lawrence. Cadets Will Alders and Chris Wilder will be Junior Yell Leaders for the 2015-2016 school year. Ryan Trantham, special election commis sioner and Memorial Student Center presi dent, said more votes were cast in the revote than in original election, with 11,433 eligible ballots cast for Senior Yell Leaders and 9,612 cast for Junior Yell Leaders. Trantham said he believes the vote reflect ed student body opinion. “There were very clear breaks in the votes, very clear indicators that these young men were the students that the student body wanted to see as Yell Leaders for next year, so I was very pleased with that,” Trantham said. Lawrence said he was pleased that roughly the same number of people voted the second time around. “It doesn’t matter what the results were,” Lawrence said. “The ultimate point of elec- YELL LEADER ON PG. 2 M. BASKETBALL W. BASKETBALL A&M looks to bolster resume in season finale against Alabama By Carter Karels By losing to Florida in Gainesville Tuesday night, the Texas A&M basketball team en ters what might be a must-win scenario. The last game of the regular season will be played at 1 p.m. Saturday in Reed Arena against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Alabama (17-13, 7-10 SEC) comes into the matchup with consecutive defeats. The Crim son Tide’s most recent one came at the hands of Ole Miss on senior night, when the Rebels overcame a halftime deficit to win. In the loss, Alabama senior Levi Randolph finished one shy of his career high, tallying 32 points. Randolph leads the Crimson Tide in scoring with 15.3 points per game and has logged dou ble-digit performances in all but three games. This includes his outing against A&M on Jan. 6 in the conference opener, in which he shot 3-for-7 from the field with 10 points en route to a 65-44 Crimson Tide victory. The Aggies (20-9, 11-6 SEC) were with out their leading scorer and rebounder at the time, Jalen Jones, because of a reported ankle injury suffered in practice. The current lead ing scorer, Danuel House, started SEC play sluggishly, racking his third single-digit scoring ALABAMA ON PG. 2 Kourtney Roberson shoots a free throw in a home win over Auburn. Injured junior guard Jordan Jones (left) joins the rest of the A&M women in singing the Aggie War Hymn after the win Thursday. Aggies clear first hurdle on path to SEC championship By Milkyas Gashaw The 5-seed Texas A&M women’s basketball team got one step closer to an SEC tournament crown with a 57-47 victory against the 13-seed Auburn Tigers Thursday in Little Rock. The Aggies (23-8, 11-6 SEC) showed the Tigers (13-18, 3-14 SEC) a balanced offensive attack, with the No. 18 club getting double figures from Achiri Ade, Courtney Walker and Chelsea Jennings and Courtney Williams, who led the Ag gies with 14 points. Tra’Cee Carter led the way for the Tigers with 14 points and nine rebounds while Katie Frerking had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. With the victory, the Aggies are slated to play LSU at 2:15 p.m. Friday. The Ti gers got the better of the Aggies Sunday in an 80-63 victory. Williams said they will take a new ap proach against the Tigers. “We have to keep our turnovers down,” Williams said. “We have to be poised and start out fast. We can’t just die down and be careless as the game goes on.”