Less than three weeks after being sworn into office, two of the
new undergraduate student government councilmembers will have to
stop performing their duties until the university police and the
Student Conduct Committee review allegations that they vandalized a
signboard during runoff elections seventh week.
At nearly 2 a.m. Wednesday, after nearly five hours spent
hearing arguments, the Judicial Board unanimously ruled in favor of
the petitioner in a case regarding the conduct of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council Elections Board during the runoff
elections. Former presidential candidate Josh Lawson asserts the
E-Board was inconsistent in imposing sanctions on
candidates.Â
The Judicial Board decided to put a stay on the certification of
the election results for General Representatives Anneli Villarin
and Tommy Tseng, pending an investigation into the accusations of
vandalism, said Mark Belgen, chief justice of the Judicial
Board.
Lawson and his colleagues also filed a complaint against the
E-Board for unfairly sanctioning candidates running with the Equal
Access Coalition, but the Judicial Board ruled the petitioner did
not provide sufficient evidence to merit overturning the elections
results.
On the last day of the runoff elections, Villarin and Tseng were
accused of tearing off portions of a Nation2Nation signboard
advertising the group’s endorsement of Lawson for president,
but no one has publicly come forth as a witness to that specific
event.
In what Lawson asserts is a connected occurrence, Facilities
Commissioner Pavan Tripathi reports to have witnessed Villarin and
Tseng attaching Students First! fliers to the Nation2Nation sign
board, but made it clear that he did not see either of them ripping
materials off the board.
At the time that the complaint regarding the vandalism was
reported, Elizabeth Russell, chairwoman of investigations for the
E-Board, said she visually confirmed that materials had been ripped
off the signboard, but it is not clear who did the damage.
Tripathi, who admits he did not see either candidate ripping
fliers off the board, is the only person who has publicly come
forward as a witness to the event ““ “no one else came
forward and said they had seen it happen,” said Roy Samaan,
chairman of the E-Board.
In stories that mirror each other almost exactly, Villarin and
Tseng both maintain they neither ripped materials off the
Nation2Nation signboard in question nor attached fliers to it. They
say they were only campaigning in the vicinity of the damaged
board.
“The only thing we were doing was fliering near the
signboard. That was it. … As far as Tommy and I were concerned
that day, we didn’t violate any E-board rules,”
Villarin said, adding that she and Tseng were approached by
Tripathi and accused of vandalism they say they did not commit.
Tseng also said he and his colleague were campaigning near the
signboard but did not vandalize it in any way.
“I don’t know whether the sign was vandalized. What
I know is that I’m sure that nobody from Students First! and
nobody campaigning for Students First! vandalized the
signboard,” Tseng said.
Neither Villarin nor Tseng were called on to respond to the
accusations at any point during the case, including during the
Judicial Board hearing Tuesday.
“We were given no opportunity whatsoever to give a
response to that allegation,” Tseng said, adding that he only
became aware of the accusations when the Judicial Board case was
brought to council at its June 1 meeting.
The Judicial Board found that even the possibility that these
two candidates committed vandalism on campus merited further
investigation by both the UCPD and Student Conduct Committee,
Belgen said.
“That being such serious issue that would have possibly
lead to them being disqualified from the election, and the
Elections Board saying that it was out of their hands, we wanted
those investigations to follow through,” Belgen said.
After repeated calls on Wednesday, Belgen could not be reached
for further comment and other justices had been instructed not to
speak publicly regarding the decision.
The incident was not thoroughly investigated at the time because
the issue of vandalism does not fall under the jurisdiction of the
E-Board, Samaan said, explaining that there are no regulations in
the elections code that pertain to vandalism.
The E-Board referred the candidate who filed the complaint to
the Dean of Students, the Center for Student Programming and the
UCPD, but the candidate did not follow through on that
recommendation, Samaan said.
“There was no case filed with the Dean of Students after
all and there is no Student Conduct Committee hearing going
on,” Samaan said.
Other issues that were addressed included sanctions for using
A-boards on campus, erecting a campaign post on Bruin Walk, and
distributing fliers in the dorms, which Lawson sees as instances in
which his slate was treated unfairly.
As for Villarin and Tseng, their future on student government
will not be decided until the UCPD and Student Conduct Committee
have reviewed their case, but Tseng said he is confident that with
further investigation, it will become clear that he and Villarin
are not guilty of vandalism.
“I’m really looking forward to being cleared of this
allegation … to getting back to the work of my office,”
Tseng said.