itself. Firstly, the elections for the upcoming academic year were declared invalid by the Polity Supreme Court leaving no elected officials on the executive branch (Polity Council). Secondly, the operating budget for the 2001 - 2002 year was rejected by then Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Frederick R. Preston citing questionable increases of funding to clubs which had affiliations with elected officials. Without an approved budget, no disbursement of SAF money could be made to any of the clubs or organizations on campus in the upcoming fall semester. The Office of Student Affairs responded by installing interim officials on the Polity Council and allowing 25% of the SAF money to be disbursed based on the previous year's budget allocations until the Polity Senate could approve a new budget. Upon return in the fall, the Polity Senate faced pressure from clubs operating on limited budgets in addition to the refusal by Vice President Preston to allocate any additional SAF funds without a finalized budget, and on October 11 approved their proposed version for Preston's approval. Additionally, Fall elections were scheduled to fill all the seats of the Polity Council which were technically vacant but running with interim officials. When the election results were tabulated, Interim President Natalie Hodgson won the election, however she failed to secure the required 50% of votes cast necessary under the SPA constitution to win the election by 6 votes. Runoff elections were scheduled to determine the SPA President, however turnout was low with only 154 out of approximately 13,000 undergraduate students voting. Hodgson lost the runoff election to Malika Granville however V.P. Preston refused to accept the results of the election due to the low turnout and threatened to decertify Polity and place the SAF under administrative receivership until a new Student Government could be established unless the Senate resolved the Presidential issue. To address V.P. Preston's threat of dissolving Polity, SPA Vice President Akelia Lawrence took over as Interim President until the Senate determined if another runoff election was necessary. Legislation was passed by the Polity Senate in early February 2002 to forego having another runoff election, and allow Interim President Lawrence to serve out the rest of the year. Attention was then turned to completing the requirements of a memorandum dated February 25 to President Lawrence which required Polity to "appoint a Judiciary, correct a range of serious problems and contradictions in its