The Student Union Elections Commission is levying a $200 fine against President-elect Brooke Feldman and Vice-President-elect Mark DiCristofaro, charging them with violating campaign advertising rules.
According to an order issued by the SUEC, Feldman and DiCristofaro broke campaign rules by posting more than 356 fliers in Warren Towers several days before they were officially authorized to, giving them an unfair advantage over other candidates. Although this would have little effect on Feldman’s campaign – she was running unopposed – DiCristofaro won his election against Tyler Ramaker by a relatively narrow margin.
“We didn’t give it the go ahead until April 7,” said SUEC chairman David Sideman, who noted that Feldman and DiCristofaro fliers had been in Warren Towers as early as April 4.
DiCristofaro said that the commission has no power to enforce the fines because it is a student group.
He and Feldman have protested the fines saying that even though the postings were in violation of the SUEC guidelines, they could not be fined because they sought and received approval from Student Activities Office before posting any campaign material.
“It is a standard SAO and university policy that you can distribute material through the Office of Residence Life Boards by going to the Office of Residence Life,” he said. “Those get distributed throughout campus. The Elections Commission, since they’re all new at their job, didn’t know this.”
When Student Union President Jon Marker used a similar line of reasoning earlier in the semester – he said that SAO rules allowed him to circumvent Union guidelines on budgetary spending – the General Assembly chastised him and passed a series of amendments to ensure it never happened again.
The rules outlined by Sideman in his order note that candidates who hang up fliers illicitly would be penalized $10 per flier up to $200. He declined to specify why Feldman and DiCristofaro’s violation would not constitute fines of $200 each, other than to say that “400 dollars is a lot of money.” The commission”s decision to split the fines between the two candidates conveys sets an advantageous precedent for joint campaigns, whose members would face lesser punishment and fines for breaking campaign rules. Not only did DiCristofaro and Feldman face lower maximum penalties, but they split the bill on campaign costs, giving them a 2 to 1 advantage over opponents with a $500 spending limit.
Vice-Presidential candidate Tyler Ramaker’s Campaign Manager Ricky Junquera said Feldman and DiCristofaro’s campaign had an unfair advantage.
“Mark and Brooke were able to advertising earlier because we held off and they went through Residence Life,” the College of General Studies sophomore said.
Ramaker said he already knew he was at a disadvantage when he entered the race.
“They were obviously already at a great advantage knowing more people at the university because I’ve only been here a year, and they’ve been here a combined four years,” the CAS junior said. “I knew this getting into it. And they started campaigning a week before me … I guess if I’d change anything, I would have [addressed these issues] as the race was going on instead of after the fact.”
Junquera said SUEC’s decision to act after the election will be ineffective.
“It’s like Jonah’s censure,” he said. “It’s a slap on the wrist. It’s all the same at the end of the day.”
Sideman said his decision to delay the charges came at the suggestion of SAO official Colleen Quinn.
“We got the suggestion from Colleen Quinn to wait till the end of the election before we looked into it further,” he said. “At the time we were talking with [The Office of Information Technology] and trying to figure out the write in ballot. There was a lot going on, and we figured we’d wait till the end of the election to find a resolution
“We had a lot of pressure from SAO to do different things,” he continued. “It may have been in the back of their head that it would lower voter turnout.”
Colleen Quinn said it is standard procedure to investigate college campaign issues after elections end.
“It’s traditional that whenever you have an election, across most college campuses, you report these things after the election,” she said. “If there were legal issues or something bad we would have done something, but there was nothing really pressing.”
Sideman said he was limited in the ways he could take action against the violation, but felt action should be taken regardless of the outcome because “people in elected office are supposed to follow the rules.”
“I don’t know what else we could have done at the time,” he said. “I know past elections commissions have suspended their campaign privileges, but I think that’s a huge freedom of speech violation.”
Both Feldman and DiCristofaro are looking to appeal the ruling. However, the Union’s constitution provides no guidelines for an appeals process.