La Voz

Issue date: 5/27/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Jose Marte

Media Credit: Jose Marte Advise and consent: DASB Senate candidates Robin Claassen (above) and Terell Sterling (below) ponder their options with advisers during Tuesday's grievances meeting.

Here we go again … In a move reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the DASB senate elections of 2007, the elections committee has decided to postpone the announcement of results from the 2008 elections due to a series of grievances filed by multiple parties alleging campaign malfeasance.

At the grievances meeting last Tuesday, the elections committee decided to strip the United Students Coalition of 10 percent of its votes for exceeding the DASB's campaign spending limits.

USC spent $700 on the campaigns of the 13 members in its coalition, eclipsing the $650 limit by about $4 per person.

Adwin Ho, a member of the elections committee, proposed the vote penalty as a substitute for disqualifying USC altogether. Such a punishment would be too harsh, he said.

David Hinault, USC's presidential candidate, took issue with the ruling.

"What happened was a financial error, it wasn't a campaigning error, so we shouldn't be penalized by votes. We should be penalized financially," he said.

According to Hinault, the coalition included unused materials in its expense report. Members reported an excess of 1,000 flyers, bottles of paint and stacks of undistributed business cards that were not used.

"We didn't have any unfair advantage. The only thing we did is that we screwed up on the report," said Andrei Fomenko, a USC candidate in the election.

All senate candidates can be reimbursed for up to $50 worth of campaign materials per person, whether used or unused. The honor system is used when it comes to candidates filling out expense reports.

The vote penalization could significantly impact the results of the senate elections because the margins between first and second place are often close.

The average difference between vote counts for running mates falls within a margin of five percent, Hinault said at Thursday's follow-up elections grievance meeting, where he filed an appeal.

"In trying to be lenient with us you did the same thing as disqualify us," he told interim committee chair Monica Penn.

"There's at least one position - perhaps a few positions - where 10 percent would make the difference between winning and losing, and so would result in disqualification for certain candidates," said Robin Claassen, former president of the senate and USC candidate for VP of administration.

Claassen said that he was unaware of any excess spending. "We had the choice to not count anything we didn't actually use in the campaign," he said.

Thursday night's second grievance meeting ended with the elections committee rescinding the motion against USC and approving a milder alternative.

USC presidential and vice presidential candidates, positions for which candidates are prone to close vote counts, will lose 10 percent of their votes divided by the number of candidates running for the position. Other USC candidates in the election still face a whole 10 percent loss of votes for the expenditure breach.

"We're not happy with it, but we consider it progress," Hinault said. The coalition has the option of appealing the vote by this Wednesday's senate meeting.

Candidate for vice president of administration Yujin Yoshimura's filed grievance against running mate Robin Claassen, accusing him of campaigning prior to the campaign week by telling a student of his plans to run in the election as a member of USC, failed at the meeting.

"It is important to have a fair election. If any candidate attempted to have unfair advantage over another candidate by violating the rules and the election committee tolerates that, it is not good," said Yoshimura.

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