A Bruins United slate campaign manager filed a petition with the undergraduate student government Judicial Board Tuesday to appeal a recent Election Board decision that prohibited the slate from online campaigning for two days.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council Election Board sanctioned LET’S ACT! and Bruins United candidates on Friday, saying the candidates violated the Election Code by posting promotional photos of candidates before the scheduled online campaigning period began. The Election Board sanctioned both slates by prohibiting them from campaigning online for two days.
Online campaigning for the USAC election started this week, and voting will run through fifth week.
Bruins United posted cover photos on April 12, which featured each candidate with a fact about them in a speech bubble against a blue background. The cover photos also included one of the slate’s commonly used slogans, “Be You.”
Bruins United campaign manager Zoe Sheppard, a fourth-year international development studies student, submitted the petition to the Judicial Board to review the case, claiming that slate members did not violate the code and were unfairly sanctioned. Sheppard could not immediately be reached for comment for this article.
In the petition, Bruins United said it thinks the Election Board’s interpretation of the code creates an overly broad definition of “campaigning,” which it says places undue burden on candidates.
The petition also says the Election Board broke precedent by sanctioning slates, since in the board did not sanction candidates for similar social media posts in previous years. The slate added that the complaint to the Election Board was not filed within a 24-hour window following the alleged misconduct.
Election Board Chair Shagun Kabra said he thinks the Election Board decision was right.
“My job is to make sure elections are fair and this was a violation,” he said.
The Judicial Board will hold a public preliminary hearing and court hearing Thursday evening.
Compiled by Eliza Blackorby, Bruin contributor.