Election dispute goes to Smedick

Supporters of Amendment A are awaiting the final decision on the eight campaign violations they filed against the Amendment B campaign prior to last week's Student Council (StuCo) Referendum election. Director of Student Involvement Dr. Bill Smedick said he plans to announce his decision Monday, after consulting with student Board of Election (BoE) co-Chairs Erika Stoddard and Fahad Khan. Smedick's decision will be final.

The appeal to Smedick follows a ruling by the BoE on Thursday against Amendment A's appeals. The student drafters of Amendment A, including Eric Leslie, Stephen Goutman, Jenny Chiang, Morgan MacDonald and April Land, had filed their initial complaints of Amendment B's campaign violations to the BoE just within the 24-hour time limit after polls closed April 20. They are arguing for reevaluation of Amendment B's poll victory due to multiple campaign infractions prior to the election. Amendment B, drafted by Manish Gala, Sarah Cummings, Tara Feehan and Chris Cunico, was the winning constitutional amendment by a 341 to 231 vote.

Amendment A proponents claim that multiple misrepresentations by their opposition served to mislead student voters to vote against their proposal. However, while the BoE did grant three of the eight complaints submitted by Amendment A during the campaign period, they chose to support the final election results.

"[The three complaint rulings] were partial victories for us, but they effectively served to confuse the voters," said Amendment A drafter Leslie.

Stoddard said last week that although the Board felt that the Amendment B campaign had run a fine line, they did not find it unethical enough to disqualify the amendment.

"There was a lot of politicking on both sides of the issue," Khan said. "We didn't think of the consequences, but instead evaluated the individual infractions as they were submitted."

The Board had 48 hours to make their ruling. Amendment B supporter and StuCo President-elect Gala acknowledged last week, too, that Amendment B's proponents had misrepresented the opposition at some points.

The Amendment A campaign now awaits Smedick's ruling. According to Leslie, the campaign's goal was ultimately to reach Smedick.

"We knew they [the BoE] would most likely rule against us as they had before [on the individual complaints], but we appealed to them so we could appeal to Smedick," he said.

Smedick found the written appeal Tuesday when he returned from out of town. As of Wednesday, he would not venture to say what his final decision may be. He said that while he has not faced a similar case in recent years, he anticipates a quick decision.

"Hopefully, it won't be so complicated that I won't be able to make a decision soon after [meeting with Stoddard and Khan]," he said.

Smedick added that, should he find Amendment B responsible for significant misrepresentation of their opponents, Amendment A need not win the election by default.

"It is possible that there could be a re-vote," he said. "It depends on the nature of the infraction."

Goutman said that the main purpose of the appeal is to "look at the [BoE's] rulings of the violations as they were submitted earlier" to determine whether they were significant enough to merit a reevaluation.

Leslie said that regardless of Smedick's ruling, he feels that Student Council will benefit from the issues that this case that has raised in respect to improper campaigning.

"We're in a win/win situation. If he [Smedick] sides with us, we can go ahead and start our changes," he said. "Otherwise, it [our appeal] highlights the problems of Student Council, and hopefully they can be fixed next time."

He said that the fact that the Amendment B campaign had to rely on negative campaigning, and that Gala admitted to misrepresentations by fellow Amendment B supporters, shows a weakness in their purpose and a need for change: "It exemplifies the type of leadership he [Gala] will bring to StuCo as the leader of the undergraduate student body next year.