As students began voting for student governments yesterday, College of Arts and Sciences slate Affirmative Action attempted to extend the CAS Forum voting period until next week following “unfair campaigning,” according to Action Presidential candidate Joseph Hardin.
However, Student Union Elections Commission chair John Macom refused to grant the slate the extension.
Hardin said he contacted Macom last night when he found out his slate’s flyers, which were delivered to the main Office of Residence Life last Friday, were not distributed to all Boston University residences as expected.
ORL delivers posters and flyers to residences for student groups. For elections, the flyers must be approved by SUEC and the Student Activities Office.
“I brought the [SAO] approved document to the ORL office on Monday,” Hardin said. “[The worker] said that she would make sure they got filed correctly, and then continued to say the sheets had already been sent out to all of the RAs.”
However, when he didn’t see the flyers posted yesterday, he called ORL again and discovered the flyers were never sent. This ORL worker, contradictory to the previous worker, informed him the flyers remained in the office because the approval sheets were never handed in.
Without the flyers, Hardin said, Affirmative Action’s advertising is low. He said the slate relied on ORL to distribute the flyers, following advice from current CAS Forum President Simon Laing.
“We had been directed by Simon that ORL has a service to which they would distribute the flyers for you,” Hardin said. “This would save us time, and we could focus on the issues.
“We had planned for the flyers to go out so that students would see them during the election week, but we don’t even have flyers up now, because of the mishandling and the irresponsibility of the ORL office.”
Since Action anticipated flyer distribution, Hardin said he contacted Macom last night to ask if the voting period could be extended to allow Action to advertise.
“If as a last resort, I asked if he would he be able to extend the voter period in order for us to let us get our name out more,” Hardin said. “He had said since what happened last year with the election, the Tribunal would probably not even want to hear it. So, his answer was no.”
Macom said preventing an election nightmare similar to last year, when the entire election was ruled invalid, was important to him and Union members.
“The Union would probably be against [extending the voting period,]” Macom said. “That is one thing the Union did not want to happen — to have the elections run on like last year.”
Leslie Cook, vice presidential candidate of Velvet Revolution, said Action’s decision to rely on ORL was a mistake. Revolution’s flyers, she said, were also not delivered.
“On Friday, our signs had not been delivered,” Cook said. “All of the things that are up are things we have put up ourselves.”
Cook said Revolution employed various tactics to advertise the election.
“I personally haven’t seen any advertisement for them,” Cook said. “I don’t think it’s the job of BU to get our flyers up. That was just one area we were campaigning — a way to get into other residences where we don’t live. That was by no means the only way we were advertising.”
“I don’t feel as if our slate had the true fairness it deserves since most of the students don’t know about the elections,” Hardin said. “An effective way of campaigning is to show them it is going on. Without the flyers, we just have word of mouth. We don’t want it to be a popularity contest, but it should be based on issues.”
Despite the refusal to lengthen the voting period, both slates said they will heavily campaign today and Friday.
Cook said Revolution will be campaigning on Commonwealth Avenue to further inform students.
Hardin said Action slate members will be distributing platform material to students tomorrow in the GSU.
“We have been organized since we committed to this,” Cook said. “We want to win. This the best way to know how. I want it to be about the facts.”
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