The Election Board recently sanctioned the 10 LET’S ACT! candidates for campaigning within residential buildings – sanctions Bruin Alliance and Bruins United leaders say don’t go far enough and highlight flaws within the campaign sanctioning process.
Ken Myers, co-chair of Bruins United, filed the complaint on Wednesday. It included witness accounts, photos, videos and a screenshot of a Google Doc. The document, called “All Hill Point People,” listed the floors of Rieber Hall, Rieber Terrace and Rieber Vista and highlighted where USAC Election Board Chair Dana Pede, Election Board Vice Chair Eena Singh, the Judicial Board chair and members and candidates of Bruins United live. Bruins United members were highlighted in yellow and Election Board and Judicial Board members were highlighted in red.
The Election Board sanctioned all 10 LET’S ACT! candidates by banning them from all forms of on-campus campaigning Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The sanction did not include off-campus campaigning. Supporters of LET’S ACT! and Bruins United were campaigning in the North Village on streets like Strathmore Drive.
The Election Board also sanctioned the LET’S ACT candidates from active online campaigning from 4 p.m. on Wednesday to 4 a.m. this morning.
A similar “dorm storming” incident occurred in 2011, when that year’s Election Board placed all 10 Bruins United candidates on probation for the same violation and said any further incidents would lead to the candidates’ disqualification.
[Updated at 4:30 p.m.: In 2011, the board banned the candidates from campaigning for two hours during the Wednesday of elections week.]
After the most recent incident, members of the Bruins United and Bruin Alliance slates said they want the Election Board to do more to address campaign violations.
Myers said he doesn’t think sanctions for online and on-campus campaigning will hold candidates accountable today, since voting ends at 6 p.m.
“They need to do something more,” Myers said.
The board has the option to impose more serious sanctions for election code violations, including disqualification of candidates and holding another election later in the year, said Dana Pede, USAC Election Board chair.
“In the end, the Election Board has to establish a fair process … If at the end of the day, we don’t feel like there has been a fair process, we reserve the right to hold a new election,” Pede said.
LET’S ACT! presidential candidate John Joanino said he was surprised when he found out about the campaigning in the residential halls. He said he knew a strategy was for people to talk to their friends within dorm buildings, but did not know that LET’S ACT! members were flyering. Flyering inside dormitory buildings is prohibited by the election code.
“When I found out that flyers were distributed and there was a disruption, I was shocked,” Joanino said. “I am an RA and I know how important it is for students to have a safe place and not to be bombarded.”
Pede said based on the evidence submitted, the board found that the “dorm storming” by LET’S ACT! was a deliberate, systematic attempt to campaign in residential halls.
Pede said the board did not enforce a formal probation. But, the board does consider repeat violations as more serious, she added.
Myers also submitted a subsequent complaint alleging the candidates violated the online campaigning sanction, but the board did not find the evidence to be valid.
Election Board officials said they did not find the complaint to be valid because the evidence only showed campaigning for LET’S ACT!, not individual candidates. The board does not recognize slates, Pede said.
The election code, however, states that campaigning includes “promotion or criticism of any official or unofficial group of two or more individuals who are running for USAC office, even if the individual candidates are not mentioned by name.”
Pede said promotion of the slate is not necessarily promotion of the candidates.
Nicole Kern, a first-year political science student and the Election Board liaison for Bruin Alliance, also submitted a complaint to the Election Board about the “dorm storming” incident involving LET’S ACT!, which occurred Tuesday night.
Kern went to the Election Board earlier today to complain about its handling of the situation.
Kern said it has gotten difficult for them to discourage their party members from “dorm storming” or participating in campaigning that violates the election code.
“It’s hard to convince people to follow the rules when it’s like no one is being sanctioned,” Kern said.
Kern said she would want to see the Election Board disqualify the candidate with the most sanctions to set an example.
“I understand that Election Board is trying to hold fair elections, but it’s not fair right now,” Kern said. “I genuinely did this because I believe in the values of the election code.”
Matt Abularach-Macias, a fifth-year Chicana/o studies and political science student and member of LET’S ACT!, said he thought the sanction was harsh and prevented the slate from talking to students, which is the slate’s goal.
“At this point, it’s the last day. We just need to move forward,” he said. “I think people are just trying to create a narrative to make other sides look bad.”
Voting ends at 6 p.m. today.
har har har
Let’s Act: The slate the just couldn’t stop acting. Violation after violation, and they chose to keep marching on in defiance. Such an unfortunate direction to take for what seemed to be a promising new start for the slate. I applaud the leaders of Bruins United and Bruin Alliance that chose to keep the campaign positive and respectful. It truly is disgusting to see the lengths at which students take to win.
Bruins United, the slate that couldn’t unite Bruins.
BU bloc voted, sooooo postive campaign my ass. BU is a bunch of BUllshitters, who bloc vote in order to win races..
LET’S ACT! should truly be ashamed of the campaign they’ve run this year. Not only did they deliberately violate the Election Code numerous times while sanctioned, but nowhere in this article does it mention their illegal after-hours flyering on Gayley and in Westwood OR their second “dorm storm” which took place just last night. A second election isn’t going to prevent this whole mess from happening once again; if the Election Board truly wants to restore integrity to USAC elections, it will finally grow a pair and set a precedent by disqualifying candidates or entire slates if necessary. This simply cannot go on any longer.
off-campus flyering at any hour is allowed. dorm storms don’t change elections, institutionalized block voting, however, does. As another third party slate I’d think you’d have realized that lol
If LA! was serious about “not knowing”, then the students involved in the Dorm Storm should have been immediately denounced and kicked off the LA! campaign, and LA! should have reported them to the eboard and dean of students.
C’mon Bruins United, you’ve been sanctioned for dorm storming before.
The Greeks in the Bruins United coalition are always bloc voting, which is a clear violation of the Election Code.
If they want to play a fair game, then play one. Otherwise, your legitimize is devalued. ‘
Congrats to Bruin Alliance for playing a fair game. Hope you win.
Leave it to Bruins United to start complaints like this….lets us remember what happen last year with the endorsements! Don’t be hypocrites to the “flaw process”
If you have the rules, you have to enforce the sanctions. And they need to be clearly defined BEFORE the violations are made.
But why do the sanctions exist? Seriously, just let all the candidates flyer everyone once, and get it over with. It’s not like they’re literally shoving the flyers in our face anyway. What difference does it make that there’s a flyer on my floor in the dorms versus one outside my classroom versus one outside my apartment building (versus the one I found under my windshield wiper today off campus)? It’s a joke that they even pretend that these rules are meant to do anything
It’s really discouraging to see the success of the slate that blatantly disregarded election rules and then defied the sanctions placed on them. “Let’s act” is made of the same people who ran the fractionalized ‘Students First’ party that collapsed last year. That group and Bruins United may have a history of controversial campaigning, but Bruin Alliance was a new slate this year that wanted to have a fair election.
I personally saw a number of written apologies to other candidates, including one from John Joanino himself, apologizing for his rude and aggressive behavior and expressing a desire for the campaign to be civil and fair. It is clear now that fair elections were the last thing he wanted.
John, you should be ashamed of the lies you told and how you acted. Maryssa, I hope you don’t give us a repeat performance from last year where the workload forced you to leave your position. And Let’s Act as a whole, get yourselves together or you will continue to be a disgrace to this university.