The Student Association held a campus-wide referendum on Friday over whether to alter how congressional elections are run. With an estimated voter turnout of less than 1 percent, the proposed changes were overwhelmingly approved according to preliminary results.

Passed unanimously at last Tuesday’s SA Congress meeting, the Election Transparency and Equality Act amended the SA Constitution and Management Policies to mandate that all congressional elections be held on the same day. The date would be selected by the speaker of Congress with approval from a majority of community council presidents.

While the SA Constitution currently requires representatives to be elected “within the first 15 fall semester class days,” each community chooses a specific election date, creating “multiple election days for the same governing body,” according to Nicholas Ginsberg, the SA executive vice president and a senior majoring in political science.

The unstandardized election timeline meant that certain living communities, like Newing College and Susquehanna, lacked complete representation at the first SA Congress meeting in September.

The new legislation also implements universal campaign rules addressing issues related to social media advertisement, permitted slogans and joint campaigning, among others. Candidates will now be allowed to include “vote for me” and other similar phrases on social media posts.

Representatives also agreed to a timeline for elections. Living communities must share letters of intent with their constituents at least 48 hours before ballots are sent. All votes will be cast through B-Engaged from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on that day. The resolution also outlined a process for certification and releasing election results.

Ginsberg coauthored the resolution with Jacob Taichman-Bernstein, a representative from Hinman College and a freshman majoring in philosophy, politics and law.

In September, Taichman-Bernstein ran to represent Hinman College in the SA Congress for the 2025-2026 academic year. In a statement to Pipe Dream, he described the campaign rules as “unclear” and “unusually strict,” creating confusion for those running. Due to complaints that the election had been “undemocratic,” a rerun election was declared and took place two weeks later, where issues with communication and transparency were still present, he said.

“I originally wrote this legislation in response to issues I encountered with my own congressional election, which had to be run twice due to procedural problems,” Taichman-Bernstein wrote in a statement to Pipe Dream. “Upon circulating the initial legislation, I heard from students and representatives who expressed similar frustration with the inconsistent rules, unclear ballots, and unequal campaigning standards. These issues have existed for years, but this year they were more widespread and severe than ever before. The goal was to create a unified, transparent system that applies equally to every constituency.”

Blake Goldstein, the speaker of the SA Congress and a junior majoring in political science, told Pipe Dream that similar irregularities occurred in Mountainview College.

“As it stands, community governments do not have much assistance from the Student Association, and hopefully should this pass, we can help them ensure this never happens again,” Goldstein told Pipe Dream before the referendum results were released. “Depending on the outcome of today’s vote, we are looking forward to streamlining the elections process for all parties in alignment with our goals to increase transparency throughout campus.”

Each community also had different campaign rules. Candidates from Hinman College were not allowed to promote their campaigns on social media and could only encourage people to vote on election day.

Out of more than 14,000 undergraduate students, only 121 votes were cast in the referendum.

The 2025-26 SA E-Board elections were also marked by election controversy. In the race for Binghamton University Council representative, Irene Cui, a junior majoring in economics, who eventually won, was initially disqualified and removed from the ballot in March because of her previous position as SA parliamentarian, which she resigned from on Feb. 12. Later that month, her candidacy was temporarily restored pending a decision by the Joint Grievance Board, which eventually ruled 5-4 in her favor a few hours before the SA Congress was set to confirm campus-wide election results.

Cui defeated incumbent Mackenzie Cooper, now a first-year graduate student studying public administration, by 36 votes out of 2,686 cast.

The race for executive vice president was tabled after concerns were raised about the electoral process. Ginsberg initially trailed Batia Rabin, the incumbent EVP and now a senior double-majoring in philosophy, politics and law and women, gender and sexuality studies, by just 34 votes. He then filed a grievance with the SA’s Judicial Board alleging that the Elections and Judiciary Committee improperly tabulated student votes and incorrectly moved to certify the results despite no candidate receiving a majority.

In a scathing, over-4,000-word opinion released on April 16, the Judicial Board ordered that a special election take place after finding “widespread faulty administration” of the original race.

Ginsberg won the special election by a 747-654 vote margin.

At last Tuesday’s SA Congress meeting, representatives unanimously passed a resolution addressing some of these issues, altering the rules surrounding write-in candidates and no confidence votes while creating a communication plan between the Graduate Student Organization and the E+J Committee for “addressing key issues found during the 2025–2026 Executive Board elections and establishing clearer, fairer election procedures moving forward.”

Now that these changes are approved, Taichman-Bernstein told Pipe Dream he looks forward to working with SA officials and residential community governments to implement them.

“Thank you to every student who voted for and helped pass the Election Transparency and Equality Act,” Taichman-Bernstein wrote in a statement. “This result shows that our community values a fair, consistent, and transparent process for electing SA Congress representatives. The strong support of these amendments demonstrates that these important changes were long overdue.”