2008 Woodie Awards
Letter: Disqualified senate president candidate defends accusations
Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion
03/04/08 - To the Cigar,
There have been some decisions made in the recent Student Senate presidential/vice presidential elections that we feel are erroneous. These decisions made by the Senate Elections Committee have ultimately unjustly resulted in our disqualification. Despite this ruling we are currently fighting the decision that was made by filing a compliant with the Student Senate's Rules and Ethics Committee.
The violations that led the committee to disqualification were never officially reported to us as candidates. The only way that we have been made aware of these issues are via The Good 5 Cent Cigar and discussion with other individuals who were not members of the Elections Committee. We feel that being informed directly by the Elections Committee would have been the only official and proper way of obtaining the knowledge we would need to refute their ruling.
We would now like to take this time to explain to you the grounds on which we have been disqualified according to what we have heard. It is important to stress that these points for disqualification were completely out of our control.
The first point is that there were pens left at the voting booth printed with "Vote Feinberg/Klos." The candidates are not allowed anywhere near the voting booth throughout the day, therefore how is it possible that we would even be aware that pens were carelessly being left at the booth? The fact that pens were left at the booth without directive from any of the candidates, should remove them from blame for the actions.
This issue should have been rectified by anyone who was working the voting booth by removing the pens immediately after they were left. In addition, it would have been nice if a member of the Elections Committee informed us of this issue.
Secondly, an issue was that T-shirts were worn at the voting booth. This only became an issue after voting on Wednesday. It was deemed that wearing T-shirts to vote was advertising in the Memorial Union at the senate meeting that night. For Thursday, a message was sent to all supporters to make sure their T-shirts were covered if they were going to be in the Union.
There have been some decisions made in the recent Student Senate presidential/vice presidential elections that we feel are erroneous. These decisions made by the Senate Elections Committee have ultimately unjustly resulted in our disqualification. Despite this ruling we are currently fighting the decision that was made by filing a compliant with the Student Senate's Rules and Ethics Committee.
The violations that led the committee to disqualification were never officially reported to us as candidates. The only way that we have been made aware of these issues are via The Good 5 Cent Cigar and discussion with other individuals who were not members of the Elections Committee. We feel that being informed directly by the Elections Committee would have been the only official and proper way of obtaining the knowledge we would need to refute their ruling.
We would now like to take this time to explain to you the grounds on which we have been disqualified according to what we have heard. It is important to stress that these points for disqualification were completely out of our control.
The first point is that there were pens left at the voting booth printed with "Vote Feinberg/Klos." The candidates are not allowed anywhere near the voting booth throughout the day, therefore how is it possible that we would even be aware that pens were carelessly being left at the booth? The fact that pens were left at the booth without directive from any of the candidates, should remove them from blame for the actions.
This issue should have been rectified by anyone who was working the voting booth by removing the pens immediately after they were left. In addition, it would have been nice if a member of the Elections Committee informed us of this issue.
Secondly, an issue was that T-shirts were worn at the voting booth. This only became an issue after voting on Wednesday. It was deemed that wearing T-shirts to vote was advertising in the Memorial Union at the senate meeting that night. For Thursday, a message was sent to all supporters to make sure their T-shirts were covered if they were going to be in the Union.