The Open Party announced last night that sophomore Patrick Ronk will run for SGA president.

The decision followed Sunday’s ruling that junior Josh Ratner, the party’s formerly unopposed presidential candidate, was ineligible because he did not meet the eligibility requirements established by Student Government Association bylaws.

“Given the circumstances, we have been preparing a contingency plan if things had gone south,” Open Party ticket chairman Ryan Belcher said. “Because of Patrick’s role in SGA and his experience, he was the natural student candidate.”

Ronk, a government and politics major, is the SGA student groups director. He previously was running for student affairs vice president.

“I’ve been in SGA for two years now,” Ronk said. “It was something I had thought about doing in the future, and … I thought I would be a very strong and qualified candidate for it.”

If elected, Ronk said he will work to encourage voting and lobbying among students and improve pedestrian safety on Route 1.

The governance board finished its last appeal yesterday at 9 a.m., ruling that Ratner, the current student affairs vice president, would not be able to run for president.

“The governance board made a terrible decision,” Ratner said.

After the election board denied Ratner’s candidacy, he appealed the board. The board accepted his appeal, allowing him to be an eligible candidate. The governance board then reviewed the election board’s decision, and found it unconstitutional to grant the appeal. Once again, Ratner became ineligible to campaign.

The decision comes after the SGA made a last-minute extension Sunday night to give students three more days to register to run for a position. Based on the bylaws, there is no way for Ratner to become eligible to run, SGA President Samantha Zwerling said.

The latest appeal follows a long conflict between the SGA election and governance boards, the latter of which serves as “the Supreme Court of SGA,” SGA Speaker of the Legislature Adam Janus said.

“The appeal also went to elections board previously, so a lot of the information just got delayed in the process, so it ended up not finishing until yesterday or this morning,” he said. “But the governance board’s priority isn’t the election, it is to make sure to hold up the bylaws of the constitution. So they were more worried about that than when the election or campaigning started.”

According to the bylaws, all decisions made by the governance board are final, Zwerling said.

“It depends on your interpretation of the bylaws,” Ratner said. “The bylaws say the election board has appellate jurisdiction … including the constitutional matters, and they are not allowing me to have a further appeal with the election board.”

Zwerling said she could not comment on whether the Ethics Committee, which would decide if Ratner could stay in the SGA, will investigate Ratner’s claims.

The SGA declined to reveal the names of any new candidates until after registration ends today at 11:59 p.m., though Adam Krefetz, Election Board chairman, said they had received multiple registrations Monday night.

The long process showed the problems with the rules of the election, Zwerling said, adding that in recent history, she had never heard of an unopposed presidential candidate becoming ineligible.

“We have definitely seen ways that we need to clean up our bylaws and be a lot more explicit about what would happen in a scenario like this,” Zwerling said, “especially just in terms of determining what should be confidential and what shouldn’t be.”

The SGA Constitution and Bylaws Committee will take a closer look into the appeals process for elections and the governance board in order to clear up confusion, Janus said. These problems will also be discussed at a Constitution and Bylaws committee meeting Sunday afternoon and in a legislative meeting next Wednesday.

The Diamondback’s Mike King contributed to this report.