And just as quickly as Aaron Dillen arrived onto the UPUA scene, he was gone.

Late last night, Dillen announced that he and his running mate Elias Machina had mutually agreed to drop out of the UPUA presidential race, essentially clinching a victory for the now-unopposed Katelyn Mullen. Dillen’s ticket had been in hot water with the UPUA Elections Commission from the start after it was revealed that Machina might not meet qualifications necessary to run on the executive ticket.

UPUA election code item 4.05 states that candidates must have:

Completion of two (2) semesters of residential instruction at University Park as a full-time student at the time of registration is required for the offices of President and Vice President and one (1) semester at time of registration for all other offices.

Machina is listed as a provisional student in the Penn State directory and is only in his second semester as a freshman at University Park. The Elections Commission decided that the ticket was ineligible Sunday night and disqualified them, but Dillen decided to appeal the decision to the Board of Arbitration, and a hearing was set for Tuesday night. After much self-reflection, however, Dillen and Machina decided to drop out of the election rather than go through the appeal process.

“I thought I could have made Penn State a better place,” Dillen said. “I hope that President Mullen will be open to hearing my ideas and maybe I can work with her to hopefully get some of them implemented.”

This will be the first unopposed UPUA presidential election in the organization’s eight year history. Election day is March 27.