The Associated Students Inc. Board of Elections approved sanctions Friday against two executive candidates and the other 11 members of Students for Diverse Leadership for violating campaign policy.
As a result of two improperly placed campaign posters, ASI presidential candidate Joseph Phillips and vice presidential candidate Nayiri Baghdassarian were ordered to remove all of their staked campaign posters by 5 p.m. Friday.
Phillips and Baghdassarian also lost $25 from their campaign deposit and are not allowed to put up their posters on campus until Tuesday at 9 a.m., according to a letter sent to Phillips. All students running on the SDL ticket lost $15 of their campaign deposits.
The improperly placed posters were in violation of Section V-C-2-B of the Elections Handbook, which prohibits the posting of “any materials on, or affixing to buildings, doors/door knobs, sculptures, posts, railings, trees, traffic control signs, sidewalks, paved areas, utility poles, vehicles, parking lots, in planted garden areas, newspaper racks or kiosks,” according to the letter.
ASI Treasurer and presidential candidate Agatha Gucyski said she filed the campaign violation petition after spotting posters that were improperly placed near the University Art Museum on Wednesday morning.
“I was on my way to the University Student Union,” she said. “[There were] two posters laying on university poles. While I was there, I took the pictures.”
Gucyski turned in the petition and was present at the Board of Elections hearing on Friday. She said the board unanimously agreed that the posters were in violation of campaign policy.
“Every candidate who is going to campaign is presented with rules that we must follow,” she said. “When somebody violates the rules, it’s really like they’re cheating.”
Phillips said that he had left the campaign posters behind while he ate breakfast at one of the nearby tables. He said he did not intend for them to be used as campaigning tools.
“Me and Nayiri [Baghdassarian] had been out campaigning, passing out flyers … We had two signs with us,” Phillips said. “We had breakfast and … sat down 15 to 20 feet away. We saw Agatha come up and take a picture and walk away.”
Phillips said he was notified on Wednesday that a petition had been filed against him.
On Friday, Gucyski and Phillips appeared before the Board of Elections to discuss the petition. Gucyski said that Baghdassarian and SDL ticket candidates were not present at the hearing.
“Each candidate is held responsible for holding each other accountable,” Gucyski said. “There’s no other way to create fairness.”
Phillips said he brought a witness to corroborate his story, but the Board ultimately upheld the petition that Gucyski had filed against him.
“We took a big hit … This is like getting hit with a torpedo,” Phillips said. “This is a dirty move.”
On her petition, Gucyski said she was mistaken when she wrote that another violation had occurred due to “littering handbills around campus [and] in bathrooms.” She said there was no official violation for the handbills.
SDL ticket and senatorial candidate for the College of Liberal Arts James Allen said he was upset by the Board’s decision.
“I thought the purpose of campaigning is to inform students that we care, not to find any technicality to damage our opponents,” he said. “All of SDL is having a portion of their campaign deposit taken away due to the violation, which will affect several members of SDL financially.”
Phillips said he plans to appeal the decision Monday.
Were they also in violation when they put up a sign across of Atherton that students can see as they exited the campus? Is putting up election posters/signs on off-campus/public property against any rules?
If those candidate are so careless as to leave their campaign materials out in the open, just imagine how they will be if they were in charge of ASI. No thank you.
Guess we don’t have to ‘imagine’ now!
That is really shady. If everything in this article is accurate, it looks worse on the AKA ticket and I definitely know who my vote is going to now. Rules and fairness are always important but this does not seem like any form of malicious “cheating” as stated.