The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Every year, during Student Government Association elections, each ticket has the opportunity to file grievances against other tickets by contacting the election commissioner.

This year, presidential candidate Andrew Chappelle filed a libel grievance on Thursday, Feb. 17, claiming that there were "unjustly unfavorable impressions" of tickets other than Cari Johns' Student First posted on the Web site sgatruth.com, according to Assistant Vice President of Student Development Phil Lyons.

The grievance, classified as Tier II, maintained that the creator and administrator of the site, Jim Swift, was a vocal and open supporter of the Students First ticket and that, by SGA election rules, Students First was responsible for content posted on the site.

The election commission met on Friday, Feb. 18, and determined that Chappelle's assessment of the situation was correct. The commission moved to limit the Students First ticket's campaign privileges on election day. Students First appealed the decision to the election moderator, Lyons, who upheld the commission's decision on Sunday, Feb. 20. Students First was neither allowed to campaign in the Quad nor to utilize staked signs in their campaign, and Swift's Web site was taken down until after the election was over.

"After spending five hours reviewing the grievance, interviewing the Students First executive candidates and talking with others, the commission deemed the Web site to hold libelous statements against candidate Andrew Chappelle," said Mike Herman, election commissioner. "The commission had proof and a verbal acknowledgement that Jim Swift was the one who runs the Web site."

Herman met with the Students First ticket after they contacted him with questions about the sanctions placed on the ticket. According to Herman, during the discussion, "President-elect Cari Johns said something along the lines of, 'I am not going to deny that Jim Swift has [a] connection to our campaign, but I do not have [a] connection to SGA truth.'"

After his decision to uphold the election commission's decision, Lyons wrote an e-mail stating his reasons for doing so. Included in his reasoning was that "Sgatruth.com broke the biggest news story of the year. From that day on, the weblog evolved from a parody and rumor site to a place where students could get the 'inside' news on what was happening in their government."

"The sgatruth.com [site] became a legitimate source of campus and political news, and many students were paying attention," Lyons' e-mail said.

The e-mail continued, stating that other "impartial media sources have internal and external controls placed upon them [and] sgatruth.com or Jim Swift does not ... Each year, it is clearly explained in the election application meetings that candidates are responsible for themselves, and the people that are supporting them."

The election commission identifies three tiers of rule violations. The most common violations include ripping down posters or putting posters over competing tickets' posters, and are considered first-tier violations, which carry only mild penalties.

Second-tier violations include campaigning by e-mail and exceeding the approved campaign budget. Punishments for tier two offenses include losing campaign privileges.

Removal from the ballot or from office is reserved for those who commit third-tier violations, including "inappropriate" campaign tactics, tampering with the outcome of the election or unlawful conduct.

According to Herman, election commissioners receive, on average, 50 to 80 grievances during election time. In order to curb the number of grievances, Herman accepted no verbal grievances, only written ones. As a result, only 11 grievances were filed this year.

"Once people are out of the election season, they realize that it's all kind of funny. When you're in the campaign, it becomes this black hole. The more you put into it, the more involved in the campaign you get. That's why things that seem small in the moment are really big to the candidates, but once they get out of the campaign, they can laugh about it, too," said Herman.

Article Tools