On April 10, 2026, the two candidates who had won the most votes for UCSD's Executive Vice President of External Affairs were removed from the race. Kaleb Truchan, who led Round 1 with nearly 38 percent of the vote, and Aydin Yelkovan, who came in second with over 34 percent, were both disqualified. The only name left on the runoff ballot was Ricardo Miranda, the incumbent, who had finished third with less than 28 percent. He ran unopposed and collected 5,214 votes to win re-election.

It was not a mistake. It was the product of a new Elections Code adopted in December 2025, 37 grievance cases filed in a single election cycle, and a provision that automatically disqualified any candidate who accumulated three formal written warnings. Both Truchan and Yelkovan hit that number. Neither could appeal their way out. More than 72 percent of Round 1 voters had chosen someone other than the person who now holds the office.

To many students, the result felt impossible to explain. To others who had been watching the grievance hearings unfold in real time on Zoom, it was the predictable conclusion of a system that rewarded knowledge of the rules over the support of the student body. This is a complete account based on the public record.

The short version

A new Elections Code adopted in December 2025 introduced a rule that did not exist before: any candidate who receives three formal written warnings is automatically disqualified. Both Truchan and Yelkovan accumulated three formal warnings through a series of grievance cases filed mostly by AS insiders, including the incumbent himself, a senator appointed just weeks before the election, and a senior AS executive officer. The underlying violations ranged from posting on Instagram before the campaign period started to appearing as a collaborator on a student-organization voting guide. Miranda, who engaged in similar voting-guide conduct, was never sanctioned. The most consequential cases, the ones that produced the third and final warnings for each candidate, were heard on April 10, the last day of voting. By the time the runoff opened, both challengers were gone and Miranda ran unopposed.

The Vote: What the Students Actually Decided

The official Round 1 results for Executive Vice President of External Affairs showed three candidates:

Kaleb Truchan: 2,092 votes (37.95 percent). Aydin Yelkovan: 1,892 votes (34.32 percent). Ricardo Miranda (incumbent): 1,529 votes (27.73 percent). Total ballots cast: 5,513.

Under Section 21 of the Elections Code, if no executive candidate wins more than 50 percent, a runoff is required between the two candidates with the most votes. On the raw numbers, that should have been Truchan versus Yelkovan.

Instead, the Round 2 results sheet listed only Ricardo Miranda. Both challengers were marked DISQUALIFIED. Miranda received 5,214 votes (100 percent) running unopposed.

Who Were the Candidates?

Understanding the backgrounds of the three candidates matters for context.

Ricardo Miranda was the sitting Executive Vice President of External Affairs running for re-election. He won the seat in Spring 2025. His candidate statement for 2026 emphasized his experience leading lobby trips to Sacramento and Washington, D.C. and his relationships with labor unions and SPACES.

Kaleb Truchan was a sitting AS senator who decided to challenge the incumbent. His candidate statement described himself as someone who had worked in government and advocacy since age 15, currently working for the immigrant rights justice movement and managing a congressional campaign. He campaigned on saving student service centers, making Geisel Library 24 hours, expanding campus markets, and turning AS into a nonprofit. His Instagram post that triggered the first complaint showed him at the AS Senate dais captioned "On a presidential run" with hashtags like #SaveMakerspace, #24hourGeisel, and #24hourMarkets.

Aydin Yelkovan was a third-year political science transfer student and a former leader in Students for Justice in Palestine, where he was awarded Best Cultural Impact. He was also a lobbyist with the California Clean Money Campaign and helped get the Fair Elections Act on the 2026 ballot. He ran on a platform focused on ending the model of academia that treats students as customers rather than citizens.

The New Elections Code

ASUCSD's 2026 elections were governed by a completely new Elections Code, adopted on December 3, 2025 as Bylaw S-08-2025-26. It replaced the prior 2023-24 code with a fundamentally different framework. While it covered everything from campaign finance to social media, one provision mattered more than any other.

Section 14(2) established an automatic disqualification trigger: any candidate who received three or more formal written warnings from the Electoral Commission would be disqualified. No separate vote required. No committee discretion. Three strikes and you are out.

This provision existed alongside a broad grievance system that allowed any undergraduate student to file a complaint against any candidate. The Electoral Commission, a body of college election representatives chaired by the Elections Manager, was required to present cases within 24 working hours and rule within 48. Decisions could be appealed to the AS Judicial Board, but as the record would show, every single appeal in the cases that mattered was denied.

The Code also contained sweeping rules governing social media, endorsements, and inter-campaign coordination.

Section 15(1) required all campaign social media accounts to be registered with the Elections Manager within 24 hours of creation. Section 15(2)(b) barred campaign accounts from collaborating with, sharing, or reposting any content promoting or supporting another candidate, unless it came from the official AS Instagram page. Section 39 restricted endorsements to natural persons who were qualified UCSD undergraduate voters. Section 40 regulated endorsements by student organizations and barred orgs from funding events that promoted endorsed candidates. Section 43(k) prohibited coordination between campaigns on activities that promote or increase visibility for another campaign, including producing and distributing joint materials. And Section 44(a), the broadly worded decency clause, required campaigns to operate in a "civil, decent, and respectful manner."

These provisions would become the legal architecture for every case that ultimately sank the two frontrunners.

How the New Code Differed from the Old One

To understand why the December 2025 rewrite matters, you have to know what it replaced. Under the prior Elections Code (2023-24), none of the mechanisms that disqualified Truchan and Yelkovan existed.

Disqualification used to be a last resort, not an automatic trigger

The old code split sanctions into "minor" violations (official warnings, public apologies) and "more serious" ones (publishing wrongdoing on the ballot, spending restrictions, and disqualification). Disqualification was listed last and reserved for "egregious foul play" or cases where a candidate "repeatedly or willfully defies the rulings" of the elections boards. It required an affirmative decision by the committee. There was no mechanism by which a fixed number of warnings triggered automatic removal. The old code even included "publication of wrongdoing on the ballot" as an alternative, a way to inform voters and let them decide for themselves.

Under those rules, the Electoral Commission would have had to look at Truchan's and Yelkovan's accumulated infractions and consciously decide that the conduct rose to the level of egregious foul play. The new code eliminated that judgment call entirely. Three formal warnings, regardless of how technical the underlying violations, and you are gone.

Social media rules were far narrower

The old code's social media provisions prohibited candidates from sharing or reposting posts from another slate or individual candidate's campaign account. That is a meaningful distinction: it did not reach voting guides published by student organizations like SJP, MSA, or Hillel. As long as the content originated from a registered student org rather than a rival candidate's campaign page, collaborating on it lived in a gray area rather than being explicitly banned.

The new code changed this in two ways. Section 15(2)(b) expanded the prohibition to cover any content "promoting or supporting another candidate," regardless of who originated it. And Section 15(1) added the 24-hour registration requirement for campaign social media accounts, a rule that did not exist in the old code. Derby used this exact provision in Case 4 to secure Truchan's second formal warning for using a pre-existing Instagram account.

Endorsement rules created new tripwires

Under the prior system, candidates could receive endorsements from individuals and student organizations but simply had to notify the Elections Manager and complete an endorsement verification form. There was no language restricting endorsements to "qualified voters" or UCSD undergraduates specifically. Falsifying an endorsement was a serious violation, but bringing in a non-UCSD political figure like Oliver Ma would have been governed by generic falsification language, not an automatic technical breach.

The new code's Section 39 explicitly limits endorsements to "natural persons who are qualified voters under this Code," meaning UCSD undergraduates. Section 40 separately regulates organizational endorsements and bars orgs from funding events promoting endorsed candidates. These are the provisions that powered Coryea's complaint about the "Oliver x Aydin" Instagram story and Oppenheim's omnibus case about organizational endorsements.

The enforcement pipeline got faster and more mechanical

The old system gave the Election Committee investigative discretion. If it believed no violation had likely occurred, it could close a complaint without a hearing and redact it from the public webpage. The sanction toolkit was broader, and appeals to the Judicial Board could result in modified sanctions. Under the 2023-24 code, the committee's default tools for mid-level violations were public warnings and "publication of wrongdoing" on the ballot, not disqualification. The December 2025 rewrite replaced that ladder of escalating remedies with a three-step system where the third step is automatic removal. The new system compressed enforcement into a rigid pipeline: the Elections Manager must present grievances within 24 working hours, the Commission must decide within 48, and the sanction menu is simplified to three options (verbal warning, formal warning, disqualification) with the three-warning trigger sitting at the end like a loaded spring.

Put simply: the December 2025 rewrite created the exact tools that were later used to remove Truchan and Yelkovan. The hyper-specific social media bans, the strict endorsement eligibility rules, and above all the automatic three-warning disqualification trigger did not exist under the prior code. Under the old rules, both candidates' conduct would still have drawn complaints, but the committee would have had to consciously choose disqualification as an extraordinary sanction rather than having it kick in automatically after a series of rulings on what were, in many cases, technical violations that multiple candidates engaged in.

37 Grievances in One Cycle

The Elections Manager published a public Grievances Tracker documenting every case. The final count was 37 campus-wide cases filed between March 15 and April 10, 2026. Each entry included the complainant and respondent names, the Elections Code sections cited, the case status, a decision statement, and a minute-by-minute Commission Activity log for hearings.

Kaleb Truchan and Aydin Yelkovan appeared as respondents in multiple cases. To understand how they were disqualified, you need to trace the specific cases that generated formal warnings and who filed them.

Kaleb Truchan: Three Warnings, Three Complainants

Warning No. 1: The Instagram Post (Case 2, Miranda v. Truchan)

On March 15, 2026, Truchan posted a photo on his personal Instagram showing himself seated at the AS Senate dais with two other people making a heart shape with their arms. The caption read "On a presidential run" with hashtags including #SaveMakerspace, #24hourGeisel, and #24hourMarkets. The post had 33 likes and three comments.

The problem: the official campaign period had not started yet. Section 42(d) of the Elections Code prohibited campaigning outside the defined window, and this post predated Spring Quarter's designated start.

The complainant was Ricardo Miranda, Truchan's direct opponent, the sitting EVP of External Affairs, and the man who would ultimately benefit from his disqualification.

The Electoral Commission heard the case on April 3 at its first grievance hearing. After deliberation, it voted 7-0 to find Truchan guilty. It then reconsidered the case, deliberated again, and voted 7-0 a second time, issuing a formal written warning and ordering him to cease the violation. Truchan appealed to the AS Judicial Board on April 4. On April 9, the Board dismissed the appeal and upheld the Commission's ruling.

This was Formal Warning No. 1 for Kaleb.

Warning No. 2: The Wrong Instagram Account (Case 4, Derby v. Truchan)

Jack Derby filed this complaint on March 29, 2026, alleging that Truchan used a pre-existing personal Instagram account for campaigning instead of creating a new, dedicated campaign account and registering it with the Elections Manager within 24 hours, as required by Section 15(1).

Derby had been appointed as an Off-Campus Senator by the AS Senate just weeks earlier, during Winter Quarter Week 6 in mid-February 2026. He was not elected to the position. He filled a vacancy left by former Off-Campus Senator Lizbeth Diaz and was selected through a Senate committee that included Executive Vice President Mina Nguyen. He had been a senator for roughly one month when the election cycle began.

The Commission heard the case at Hearing Agenda No. 2 on April 6 and voted 8-0 to find Truchan in violation. It issued a formal written warning. The vote on whether to also issue a conduct recommendation was 4-5, with the Elections Manager breaking the tie. Truchan was now one warning away from automatic disqualification.

This was Formal Warning No. 2 for Kaleb.

Warning No. 3: Use of AS Resources (Case 36, Sapra v. Truchan)

On April 10, the last day of voting, Anvi Sapra, a member of the Warren College Student Council, filed Case 36 alleging Truchan had used AS resources in his campaigning, citing Sections 43(b) and 45. Section 43(b) prohibits using AS or university resources for campaign purposes, and Section 45 bars AS personnel from using their position or office to endorse or promote a candidate. Truchan was a sitting senator at the time, and the allegation appears to center on his use of his official role or AS facilities in connection with his campaign. The public Grievances Tracker does not reproduce the full complaint, and the underlying case file is not among the publicly available documents, so the specific conduct at issue is not fully detailed in the record.

What is detailed is this: a nearly identical complaint was filed the same day by Andrew Morrison, a nanoengineering student at UCSD with no AS ties, citing the exact same code sections. Morrison's version (Case 35) resulted in a 5-0 guilty verdict but only a verbal warning, which did not count toward disqualification. Sapra's version (Case 36) produced a 6-0-1 guilty vote and, critically, a 5-2 vote to issue a formal written warning. Both cases were heard at the same hearing session. The difference between a verbal and formal warning was the difference between staying in the race and being eliminated, and the record does not explain why the Commission chose different sanction levels for the same underlying conduct.

That was Formal Warning No. 3. Under Section 14(2), Truchan was automatically disqualified.

Truchan appealed this case to the AS Judicial Board. That appeal is still pending as of this writing.

Other Derby Cases Against Truchan

Beyond Case 4, Derby filed five more complaints against Truchan (Cases 5, 6, 9, 23, and 28), citing everything from the decency clause to finance-report requirements to AS personnel obligations. Every single one was either dismissed by the Commission or withdrawn by Derby himself, often within minutes of a hearing starting. None produced sanctions. But each forced Truchan to prepare a defense, and each added to the public volume of allegations against him.

Aydin Yelkovan: A Different Path, Same Destination

Warning No. 1: The Voting Guide Reposts (Case 13, Ramirez v. Simpson, Chaudhary, Gutierrez, and Yelkovan)

During the campaign, student organizations including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and the Association of Muslims in Politics and Law (AMPL) published Instagram voting guides endorsing slates of candidates. They used Instagram's "collaborator" feature so the posts appeared on each endorsed candidate's profile.

Screenshots show the SJP Voting Guide listed the following collaborators: @taimalfaraje, @moazzma, @willliamsimpson, @camila4essential, @voteaydin, and @sjpsandiego. The MSA Voting Guide listed @moazmma4evps, @willliamsimpson, and @msaatucsd.

Kristen Ramirez, a student involved in Eleanor Roosevelt College Council governance, filed Case 13 against William Simpson, Moazzma Chaudhary (a Campus-Wide Senator running for EVP), Camila Gutierrez, and Aydin Yelkovan. She alleged the collaborative voting-guide posts violated Section 15(2)(b), the ban on campaign accounts reposting content supporting other candidates, and Section 43(k), which prohibits inter-campaign coordination.

The Commission separated the case by respondent and found all four guilty of violating Section 15(2)(b). Each received a formal written warning with a recommendation to remove the posts and not engage in further similar activity. The votes were unanimous, 8-0 across the board.

For Yelkovan, this was Formal Warning No. 1.

It is worth noting that Miranda's campaign account appeared as a collaborator on a similar voting guide from AMPL, but when analogous complaints were filed against Miranda, the Commission dismissed them or found him not guilty. This is addressed in detail later.

Warning No. 2: The Oliver Ma Story (Case 24, Coryea v. Yelkovan)

This case centered on a single Instagram story. On Yelkovan's campaign account (@voteaydin), a post appeared showing Yelkovan standing next to Oliver Ma, a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of the University of California Student Association (UCSA). They were pictured on the Library Walk at UCSD with overlaid text reading "Oliver for Lieutenant Governor x Aydin for External VP" in each campaign's branded fonts.

Ryan Coryea filed the complaint. At the time, Coryea held the title of Associate Vice President of College Affairs in ASUCSD. Her LinkedIn also lists a role as Chief of Staff in the Office of the AS President under William Simpson, though it is not clear from the public record whether that title was held before or after the election.

Coryea's argument was two-pronged. Count 1: Section 39 limits endorsements to natural persons who are qualified voters under the Code, meaning UCSD undergraduates. Ma, as a UCSA candidate and not necessarily a UCSD student, was not a qualified voter, making the endorsement improper. Count 2: If no actual endorsement existed, then the story misled students by implying one, violating Section 44(a), the decency clause.

The grievance filing, authored by Coryea, argued that the post clearly depicted an accepted endorsement, not a mere shout-out, because Yelkovan himself posted it to his own story with coordinated campaign branding. The filing concluded that unless Yelkovan could prove Ma was a qualified voter or that no endorsement occurred, "he has absolutely no tenable defense in this matter."

The Commission heard the case at the April 8 hearing, entering deliberation after midnight. It voted 7-0 to find Yelkovan guilty of violating Section 44(a) and 7-0 to issue a formal written warning. The written decision stated that "given the uncertainty of any actual endorsement from Oliver Ma; even in the case in which an endorsement was not received, the respondent, in undertaking the action subject to today's ruling, would have campaigned in a manner that was misleading and thus indecent."

Yelkovan appealed to the Judicial Board on April 9. On April 10, the Board dismissed the appeal.

This was Formal Warning No. 2 for Aydin.

Warning No. 3: The Decency Clause (Case 27, Derby v. Simpson, Chaudhary, Arora, and Yelkovan)

Jack Derby filed Case 27 on April 8 against four candidates: William Simpson, Moazzma Chaudhary, Rehya Arora, and Aydin Yelkovan, citing Section 44(a), the requirement that campaigns be conducted in a "civil, decent, and respectful manner."

The public Grievances Tracker does not reproduce the full text of Derby's complaint, and the underlying case file is not among the publicly available documents. The tracker lists only the code section and the outcome. Given the timing (mid-campaign, shortly after the voting-guide disputes) and the breadth of respondents (spanning candidates from different slates), the complaint likely involved campaign conduct on social media, but the specific behavior that the Commission found indecent is not described in any public record reviewed for this article. This is a significant gap: the case that ended Yelkovan's candidacy rests on factual allegations that the public cannot fully evaluate from the available documents.

What the record does show is the outcome. The Commission heard the case at its fifth and final hearing on April 10, the last day of voting, separated it by respondent, and found all four guilty 7-0. For Yelkovan, the vote on sanction was 5-2 to issue a formal written warning.

For Yelkovan, this was Formal Warning No. 3, crossing the automatic disqualification threshold. He appealed. The Judicial Board dismissed the appeal and upheld the Commission.

Case 19: The Reconsiderations (Oppenheim v. Candidates)

Case 19 did not produce a disqualifying warning, but it reveals how the Commission treated different candidates differently within the same complaint.

Ariel Oppenheim filed an omnibus complaint against eight candidates including both Miranda and Yelkovan, citing organizational endorsement and social media violations. The Commission separated the case by respondent. Miranda was found not guilty 7-0, with no motion to reconsider. But several other candidates, including Yelkovan, were initially acquitted and then reversed to guilty on motions to reconsider. Yelkovan was found guilty 4-2 on the first vote. All who were found guilty received verbal warnings only, which did not count toward disqualification. But the pattern matters: Miranda's acquittal stood unchallenged while others were reversed in the same hearing.

Derby also filed two additional cases against Yelkovan (Cases 16 and 32), both of which he withdrew before any hearing took place.

Who Filed the Complaints, and Why It Matters

The three-warning threshold meant that disqualification required at least three separate successful complaints producing formal warnings. Across both candidates, exactly six cases proved decisive. The complainants behind them share a striking pattern: every one of them held a position in AS or college-level governance. No ordinary student without governance ties produced a formal warning that contributed to either disqualification.

Ricardo Miranda (Case 2, Formal Warning No. 1 for Truchan) was the incumbent occupying the very seat he was trying to defend, and the direct opponent of the candidate he filed against.

Jack Derby (Case 4, Formal Warning No. 2 for Truchan; Case 27, Formal Warning No. 3 for Yelkovan) was the most prolific complainant in the entire cycle, responsible for at least eleven grievances. He was appointed, not elected, as an Off-Campus Senator during Winter Quarter Week 6 (mid-February 2026), filling a vacancy. He had been a senator for roughly one month when the election cycle began. Beyond his two successful cases, he filed and withdrew at least six additional cases against Truchan and Yelkovan, forcing them to prepare defenses for hearings that never materialized. He also filed Case 37 against William Simpson on the final day, which was withdrawn with the stipulation that Simpson issue a public apology.

Ryan Coryea (Case 24, Formal Warning No. 2 for Yelkovan) was the Associate Vice President of College Affairs in ASUCSD. Her LinkedIn also lists a role as Chief of Staff to AS President William Simpson, though the timing of that appointment relative to the election is unclear.

Kristen Ramirez (Case 13, Formal Warning No. 1 for Yelkovan) was involved in Eleanor Roosevelt College Council governance.

Anvi Sapra (Case 36, Formal Warning No. 3 for Truchan) served on the Warren College Student Council.

This does not prove coordination or secret planning. But it documents that the complainants behind the decisive formal warnings were not random students. They were the incumbent himself, a senator installed by AS leadership weeks before the election, the AS President's own chief of staff, and two college council members. The reader can draw their own conclusions about what that pattern means.

The Miranda Question: Why Was He Never Sanctioned?

The most uncomfortable question for many students is why similar conduct produced fundamentally different outcomes for different candidates.

Screenshots show Miranda's campaign account listed as a collaborator on an AMPL Voter Guide post. This was structurally identical to the SJP and MSA voting-guide collaborations that triggered a formal warning for Yelkovan in Case 13. Yet when a student named Aryan Dixit filed two complaints against Miranda alleging the same violations, Case 25 was dismissed outright and Case 26 went to a hearing where Miranda was found not guilty.

Miranda also appeared as a respondent in three other cases, all of which ended in dismissals or not-guilty findings. In Case 19, the Commission found Miranda not guilty 7-0 with no motion to reconsider, even as Yelkovan in the same omnibus complaint was found guilty.

Miranda finished the entire election cycle without a single warning of any kind, verbal or formal. He is the only candidate among the three in the EVP External race who was never sanctioned, despite appearing as a respondent in multiple cases and despite engaging in the same voting-guide collaboration practice that generated formal warnings for others.

Timeline

March 15: Truchan posts "On a presidential run" on Instagram. Miranda files Case 2 the same day.

March 19-20: Case 2 presented and approved by the Commission.

March 29: Derby files Cases 4, 5, and 6 against Truchan in a single batch.

April 3 (Hearing No. 1): Commission finds Truchan guilty in Case 2. Formal Warning No. 1 for Truchan.

April 4: Truchan appeals Case 2 to Judicial Board. Ramirez's Case 13 against Yelkovan and others is presented.

April 6 (Hearing No. 2): Commission issues Formal Warning No. 2 for Truchan (Case 4, unregistered Instagram). Commission also finds Yelkovan guilty in Case 13. Formal Warning No. 1 for Yelkovan. Derby withdraws Case 5 against Truchan mid-hearing.

April 8 (Hearing No. 3): Commission finds Yelkovan guilty in Case 24 (Oliver Ma story). Formal Warning No. 2 for Yelkovan. Case 19 is heard; Miranda found not guilty 7-0, while Simpson, Chaudhary, Gutierrez, and Yelkovan are found guilty after reconsiderations and issued verbal warnings.

April 9: Judicial Board denies Truchan's appeal in Case 2. Yelkovan appeals Case 24.

April 10 (Hearing No. 5, Final Day of Voting): Commission issues Formal Warning No. 3 for Truchan (Case 36, Sapra) and Formal Warning No. 3 for Yelkovan (Case 27, Derby). Both candidates are automatically disqualified under Section 14(2). Judicial Board denies Yelkovan's appeal of Case 24 and later denies his appeal of Case 27 as well. Case 36 (Sapra v. Truchan) is appealed and remains pending.

April 10-11: Runoff ballot lists Miranda as the only remaining candidate. He wins with 5,214 votes (100 percent).

What Does This Mean?

At every procedural step, the Electoral Commission followed the letter of its own code. Hearings were convened. Quorum was established. Votes were recorded. Written decisions were published. Appeals were heard by a separate judicial body. The machinery worked exactly as it was designed to work.

The question is whether the machinery was designed fairly and whether it was operated evenhandedly.

The record shows that candidates who lacked allies inside AS leadership were uniquely vulnerable. The three formal warnings that disqualified Truchan came from his direct electoral opponent, a recently appointed senator, and a college-council member. The three that disqualified Yelkovan came from a college-governance participant, the AS President's own chief of staff, and that same recently appointed senator.

Meanwhile, the incumbent who benefited from both disqualifications was found not guilty or saw complaints dismissed every time he was named as a respondent, even when the underlying conduct mirrored what produced formal warnings for others. In Case 19, where other candidates' initial acquittals were overturned on motions to reconsider, Miranda's 7-0 acquittal stood without challenge.

None of this proves a conspiracy or coordination. The complainants may have acted independently. The Commission may have drawn genuine legal distinctions between superficially similar cases. The Elections Code may simply have been new enough that its social media and endorsement rules were applied inconsistently as commissioners learned how to interpret them in real time. What the record does document is overlapping roles, shared incentives, and a pattern of outcomes that favored one candidate over two others whose conduct was similar. It also documents outcomes that are difficult to explain on the merits: two complaints citing identical code sections against the same candidate, heard in the same session, produced different sanction levels, and the difference between a verbal and formal warning was the difference between staying in the race and being eliminated.

But the outcome speaks for itself. 5,513 students cast ballots in Round 1. More than 72 percent of them voted for someone other than the person who now holds the office. The election was decided not by the student body at large, but by a small number of complainants who understood the rules well enough to use them, and by an automatic disqualification provision that left no room for proportionality, context, or the will of the voters.

The 2026 ASUCSD election will likely force a reckoning with the Elections Code itself. Whether the three-warning rule survives, whether the grievance system gets reformed, and whether students demand more transparency from their Electoral Commission are open questions.

What is not open to question is what happened: two candidates won the most votes, and the grievance room took them out.

Sources: 2026 AS Election Grievances Tracker (public document, 37 cases); Grievance Application, Coryea v. Yelkovan (Case 24); ASUCSD Elections Code, Bylaw S-08-2025-26; Official Round 1 and Round 2 results sheets; Instagram screenshots of campaign posts, voting-guide collaborations, and stories; ASUCSD elections page (as.ucsd.edu/elections); UCSD Guardian reporting on AS Senate appointments (Winter Week 6, February 2026), 2025 election results, and runoff results; AS candidate statements (as.ucsd.edu/elections/associatedstudentselection.html). All case outcomes are drawn from the Elections Manager's published Grievances Tracker.