TAMPA, Fla. – Two conservative University of South Florida (USF) students believe they were denied a victory in a recent student government presidential election because of their political leanings.
The students suggest the USF student Supreme Court and a top-ranking dean applied vague and poorly crafted campus laws and a twisted look at the basic facts of the case, to overturn their win and hand control of the student government to their liberal opponents.
At issue is whether the conservatives — Sebastian Solano and Jessica Malanga — set up a “polling station” in violation of USF’s election rules during the campaign in February and March.
The final vote tally was Sebastian Solano and Jessica Malanga 1,076 to opponents Cesar Esmeraldi and Elizabeth Volmy – 1,011 votes.
Solano stated, “My main reason for wanting to be involved in student government (SG) was to advocate for all students and make USF a better place, but I soon realized that nearly everyone in SG cares more about their own political agenda than helping students.”
Malanga made a name for herself in student government by opposing a senate resolution entitled “Objection to the State of Florida’s Intervention in Transgender Students Medical Privacy Resolution,” which condemned Governor DeSantis and ultimately caused the most extreme version of that resolution to fail.
Malanga felt this resolution was just virtue signaling and that most of the student body would not support. It was no secret that she was an intern for the Governor’s reelection campaign and intended to help ensure that his policy changes actually made their way to the university.
By contrast, the opposing Presidential candidate, Cesar Esmeraldi, said in a pre-election debate that “DeSantis can do whatever he wants” but that a main part of his platform was replacing the SG Chief of Staff position with a Chief of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, in direct defiance of the Governor. “We’ve done our whole platform for diversity and inclusion,” Esmeraldi said.
Based on records supplied to The Free Press by Solano and Malanga, who ultimately won the election by 65 votes, the basic facts of the dispute are as follows:
On Feb. 28, the candidates set up campaign tables at two locations on the Tampa campus. They distributed snacks and flyers with their photos on them. The flyers also contained a QR code that took users to the online voting link.
At the same time, USF’s Election Rules Commission, or ERC, which oversees campus elections and the Student Government Association, set up three “official” polling stations at other locations. The sanctioned sites offered students ballots with QR codes and pizza for those who voted.
Solano and Malanga’s opponents filed a complaint, alleging the candidates’ tables were too much like the official ones, and thus constituted an illegal polling site.
That is where the case goes haywire.
The ERC “prosecuted” Solano and Malanga for violating election law, and the student Supreme Court agreed. Dean of Students Danielle McDonald upheld the decision in rejecting Solano and Malanga’s appeal.
In her opinion, McDonald noted that “the violations are severe enough to have potential to influence the outcome of the elections.”
She thus disqualified Solano and Malanga and handed the jobs of president and vice president to their opponents, Cesar Esmeraldi and Elizabeth Volmy.
Both the Supreme Court and McDonald did so, despite agreeing with Solano and Malanga that the rule they allegedly violated was vague and open to interpretation.
The rules in question hinge on defining what constitutes an official polling station.
According to the Supreme Court, an official polling station is defined as a “device or outlet of voting that is directly designated in writing and staffed by the employees of Student Government who are not running for a position in the current election.” Conversely, an “unauthorized” polling station is defined as “Any polling station that is not setup and operated by ERC staff and/or Student Government Employees. This shall also include any polling station that is being operated by a campaign ticket.”
In their appeal, Solano and Malanga contended that the definitions are moot because voting occurred online — meaning students held the polling stations in their hands. Just five of 2,087 ballots were paper ballots.
But their real argument comes from the definitions themselves.
As the text of the rules shows, they argued, the regulations did not specifically define what activities — handing out flyers with QR codes, offering snacks — were allowed or forbidden.
The Supreme Court agreed, saying in its opinion, “The definitions for what an official versus unauthorized polling station do not provide any actual characteristics of what a polling station may look like, apart from the fact that it is designated in writing and staffed by unbiased SG employees. The lack of description here creates an ambiguity as to what a polling station is, and thus means that candidates may have a hard time, going purely off of statutes, understanding when they have created a polling station.”
“If there were physical descriptors, for example, the definition of a polling station explicitly including the presence of the EBallot QR code and some sort of reward/food prize for voting, then candidates would know exactly what to avoid in order to not accidentally create an unauthorized polling station. Since those descriptors are absent, candidates lack that necessary statutory clarity, and thus are more susceptible to falling into error if they were to rely purely on statutes while trying to differentiate campaigning and polling.”
In her decision, McDonald rejected that point. She claimed that the only relevant fact was that one table was staffed by ERC/SGA members, while the other was done by candidates. Nonetheless, she wrote, “I applaud the court and the Senate for taking action to further clarify this statute.”
The court and McDonald instead claimed that there were sufficient resources outside of the election rules, such as required courses for candidates and members of the ERC, that made it clear to Solano and Malanga that they were violating the regulations.
The problem there, for the court and McDonald, is that the candidates used those resources and found nothing to conflict with what they did.
For example, before their tables went up, Solano sent Supervisor of Elections Laura Shaw an email asking about whether it was “bribery” to hand out drinks and snacks along with flyers. Shaw replied, “That would not count that sort of this (sic) as long as it is not a full meal. … Also, please do not use it to ask people to vote for you, just hand them out with your flyers.”
The court found that just by asking the question, the candidates walked a tightrope between right and wrong. The court also claimed they were being misleading, because they didn’t give more details.
Yet the justices also excused Shaw, the person in charge of the election, for not asking for more details about the event, or a copy of the flyer. “The court believes that the burden is on the candidates to be candid and clear in their requests so that the ERC can be accurate in its advice,” the opinion said.
As for Shaw, the court also indicated that “while statues have fallen short,” the candidates should have relied on still more sources of election information, such as required candidate meetings.
But Solano and Malanga countered in their appeal that Shaw fed obscurity by only telling candidates to refer just to the rules.
Yet not only did she fail to adequately dive into the definitions, candidates were required to attend only two of four scheduled meetings — which meant that if the ERC changed or clarified the rules, which it had no power to do anyway, at a meeting they did not attend, they would have no way of knowing that.
Solano and Malanga allege that Shaw, who is required by statutes to remain neutral in campaigns as the head of the commission charged with overseeing elections was actually a close friend and ardent supporter of the opposing ticket.
According to Malanga, “She was the prosecution’s star witness, but admitted on the stand to publicly supporting the Cesar and Elizabeth ticket on Instagram. On a post announcing the Solano and Malanga victory, she admitted to liking a comment which read “It ain’t over till it’s over.” We asked why she would like such an inflammatory comment if not but to encourage the overthrowing of the outcome of the election. Unfortunately, her other friends on the Supreme Court were not swayed by this blatant conflict of interest.
Perhaps most troubling, though, was that Solano and Malanga noted their opponents acted in similar fashion and escaped being punished. In their appeal, they wrote that Esmeraldi also utilized a QR code that was slapped onto yard signs displayed around campus as well as on flyers, which also had his photo, that appeared on tables manned by student groups. His QR code also took potential voters to a ballot link where they could vote for him.
“We submit this evidence merely to point out that the types of campaign activities we were engaged in were commonplace and not understood by the other candidates in this race as violative of any statutes,” Solano and Malanga argued.
They also quoted Shaw again, who told a candidates’ meeting, “Statutes are 100%. They are the SG [Student Government] bible. Everything that you will need to know about campaigning is in the statutes. If you need to know if something is a violation you go to statutes.”
They then concluded, “We were assessed a major violation for supposedly violating a statute which the SGSC [Student Government Supreme Court] itself ruled to be not clearly conveyed, and for which no one has been able to explain the specific activity we participated in which was violative. Based on our shared legal tradition, this lack of clarity voids the statute as unenforceable.”
“Overturning the Student Government Supreme Court opinion means restoring the will of the students who, by a majority vote, elected us. … The Student Government Supreme Court knows that the statute we are accused of violating was not clearly conveyed. … The will of the students must be upheld.”
Ultimately, McDonald was unmoved.
“In this election, the votes were very close, and the violation was severe enough that it could have impacted the results,” she wrote in her decision to toss the voters’ will.
“A campaign event that has tabling, offering giveaways, and staffed with onsite voting capability looks like a polling station and is especially problematic when staffed by candidates. I do not even have to review the trainings to know that this was a polling station, and because it was not run by SG, ERC or SGATO staff, it was not authorized. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.”
“The evidence, in this case, consisted of 5 witnesses, including Shaw and Cesar Esmeraldi himself, as well as 3 of his closest friends who were there to lie for their buddy to secure cabinet positions in the coming term, as well as a few blurry pictures of a table and 5-second video which showed students campaigning. That doesn’t come close to meeting the beyond a reasonable doubt burden of proof, since our witness directly refuted most of what the prosecution lied about,” said Malanga.
Students took to social media when they discovered that the election victory was being flipped from Solano and Malanga.
Their post, which announced the Dean’s decision, racked up over 100 student comments voicing their concern calling SG “corrupt” and an embarrassment for USF.
Countless comments called it a “rigged” and “stolen” election. “History repeating itself just like they did to me…in 2021. Sad to see. Y’all were the actual winners. Not petty opponents using loopholes to win something they couldn’t do with their own merit instead,” one comment read.
According to Malanga, those students brought their energy to the SG Instagram page and the opposing tickets campaign page, leaving hundreds of similar comments expressing their dismay and frustration.
“We are happy to see USF students waking up to what is going on and demanding that elections be made fair,” Malanga said.
“It was disappointing that the dean of students could not be bothered to even read the appeal we submitted, and obviously made her decision without all the facts. Whether by one vote or 65, we won this election. Perhaps it’s time for a shake-up at USF if the leadership thinks they can disrespect students, the Legislature, and the Governor so boldly.”
The Free Press reached out to Gary Manka, Director for Student Government Advising, Training & Operations at the University of South Florida for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs of the Board of Governors, Renee Fargason, declined to comment on this story.
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