Vandalism, voting difficulties disrupt Union election

Unidentified suspects vandalized Student Union property, writing in red permanent marker over Class of 2014 banner in the George Sherman Union and over Union office’s door on Thursday.

The vandalism included statements such as “Viva la Rhett-volucion! Not puppets of Administration,” referring to one of the two remaining slates for the 2011-12 Student Union, The Rhettvolution.

“You have vandalized a $1600 glass case @Rhettvolution, and it isn’t coming off. You are attacking STUDENTS’ hard work,” Union responded on Twitter following the incident.

Union removed its statement and followed with a clarification that the Union does not have evidence that the Rhettvolution had committed the vandalism. They, however, stated that they are “clearly supporters.”

“We have no idea who vandalized the case but we are sure it was no one involved in our campaign,” said College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Demarius Walker, Rhettvolution candidate for Union president, in an email interview.

Walker said his slate had contacted every member of the campaign inquiring about the vandalism and found out that no one affiliated with the slate’s campaign was involved.

“It was absolutely irresponsible for the union to Tweet that we were responsible for the act and we know that this was done because those who are in charge of the union’s social media are actively supporting our opponents,” Walker said.

Walker said he believes that it was “entirely possible” that it was done by another slate, in a scheme to give the Rhettvolution a negative image.

“This case is made even stronger in light of the fact that the spelling of Rhettvolution on the case differs from the way we spell it, but is similar to the way BuildBU and the Student Union Twitter account spells it,” Walker said.

Walker said he believes that the opposing slate members might have been trying to depict the Rhettvolution slate as “hot-headed radicals.”

Walker also said that Rhettvolution has evolved into a campus-wide movement instead of simply a Union campaign and that there is a possibility that a supporter unaffiliated with the official slate had committed the offenses.

Build BU candidate for president Howard Male, a senior in the School of Hospitality Administration and the School of Management, said that his slate was not involved in the vandalism.

“It has taken almost all semester of coordinating with Facilities, GSU administration and others to get the funding and labor hours approved. After all the time we’ve invested to make this a reality, it’s illogical for us to have done it,” said Male, who currently serves as Union’s vice president for internal affairs.

“The vandalism clearly states ‘Viva la Rhett-volucion’ – note the spelling, as though it’s a Spanish word – which is a phrase we’ve seen posted numerous times on Facebook by ardent Rhettvolution supporters,” Male said.

Male denied that his slate had attacked the Rhettvolution in any way. BuildBU has been “promoting our ideas and highlighting the differences between campaigns, not attacking individuals or vandalizing property,” he said.

Union director of public relations Vincent Squillace, a CAS senior, has apologized for the misuse of Union’s social media accounts, and Union members will now maintain an impartial view on the elections, Male said.

Union Executive Vice President Dan Ellis has come out in favor of BuildBU and is a member of the slate’s campaign staff. He also wrote a perspective in the opinion-editorial section of The Daily Free Press that stated his support of BuildBU.

“I believe individuals will be elected based on ideas, platforms, ability to lead, and qualifications, not by random posts on Facebook,” Male said.

Current Union president Arthur Emma, a CAS senior, said he believes that the people who committed the vandalism are supporters of the Rhettvolution and that BuildBU members were “definitely not” involved.

“But at the same time, I do think it’s most likely a supporter of the Rhettvolution,” Emma said.

Emma said that he was surprised that the Rhettvolution believes that the social media of the Union is partial to their opponents.

Emma said he believes that the majority of people at Union support BuildBU because of the work they have already done in the Union. Despite this support, Emma said he doesn’t believe the Twitter account had been biased in favor of BuildBU.

In a press release on Monday, Union slate The Rhett Offensive announced that they would withdraw from the Union elections, stating shared goals with Build BU as a reason for their departure from the race.

“We realized that our platform is very similar to that of BuildBU and having two similar slates running against each other decreases the chance of our ideas winning,” said the Rhett Offensive in the press release.

“In light of this realization, we decided it best to support the BuildBU slate in this year’s elections.”

The Rhett Offensive stated that they felt the need to create a unified front with Build BU as a result a realization that “Rhettvolution was against the leadership and progress of many large organizations close to our hearts, including BU Greek Life and, ironically, the Student Union itself.”

“We strongly believe that Rhettvolution is not right for the job and encourage voters that supported us to now support BuildBU,” members of the Rhett Offensive said in the release.

Walker responded to The Rhett Offensive’s release with “an open letter to the BU community,” discrediting the claims made by the opposing slate.

“Multiple complaints were filed against us and there was an active campaign to discredit our slate as naïve, superficial, and radical,” Walker said in his letter. “However, despite the fact that we were and are being continuously attacked, I continued and will continue to insist that we run a positive campaign contrasting our view of the Student Union with others.”

Rhettvolution’s candidate for president said that his slate has been taking flak from competing slates because they are viewed as outsiders from the current Union.

“The dismissive attitude that has been exhibited towards our ideas of incorporating representatives from each student group demonstrates the aristocratic attitude of the current student union,” Walker said in his letter. “The Rhettvolution seeks to eliminate this culture of elitism exemplified by this exclusive mentality.”

Election online voting system not functioning on Monday

Monday, the first day of the scheduled election period for the 2011 Boston University Student Union elections was marred with complications, as the Student Election Commission experienced “technical difficulties”: the tab allowing students to vote online through BU’s Studentlink website was nowhere to be found.

Male said that this failure could represent a huge setback in the Union election, as many students could not find the link to the voting site and were turned away by the SEC website when attempting to vote on Monday.

“It’s a huge setback for my slate, because we have many involved, active supporters who lead very busy lives, and who tried to vote today,” Male said. “They don’t have time to keep checking back to see if the problems have been fixed.”

However, BuildBU candidate for vice president Alex Staikos also said his slate “does not think that the malfunction of the website will affect our campaign all that much, if any at all.”

“Both slates have equal voting time, albeit 24 hours shorter,” he said in an email.

“[Because the malfunction affected all slates] for that reason our chances are not hurt. We are confident that the voters will be receptive to our platform, experience and endorsements,” Staikos continued.

Emma said the difficulties experienced by the SEC shouldn’t produce significant problems for the slates running for Union, as the failure with the SEC system occurred on the first day of the voting period.

“I guess time will tell,” Emma said. “It’s Marathon Monday so most of the people are going to be slightly intoxicated, so it didn’t have as much of an impact as on any other day, but it’s still highly unfortunate.”

Rhettvolution candidate for vice president Matthew Bae said he didn’t think the SEC voting system failure would seriously harm the election process.

“To be honest I don’t think its putting too much of a damper on our campaign,” Bae said. “We just wanted to keep in contact with the SEC so that our supporters know when they can get ready to go and get out the vote.”

Bae said that, while the SEC did not tell him the exact problem with the voting system, the technical difficulties may have been “out of [the SEC’s] control.”

While the SEC did not respond with comment by press time, they stated on their website “the voting system is still unavailable; the SEC will be unable to address the issue until Boston University reopens tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.”

Staff writers Josh Cain, Chris Gambon and Sydney Moyer contributed to the reporting of this article.