2008 Woodie Awards
Election controversy sparked by photo
Nick Stockton
Issue date: 4/25/07 Section: News
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In the photograph, handouts from President-elect John Lopez's campaign can be seen tiled neatly surrounding the laptop that the student is using to vote on.
According to the by-laws governing the elections, it is against the rules to have campaign literature within 100 feet of a polling place. Because the ballot was online, every Internet-capable computer is considered a polling place.
Lopez said he is innocent of any foul play during the elections. "I was even $20 under on the spending limit, to make sure that I was within the guidelines of the campaign." The spending limit was $75 per candidate, with this cost including donations.
Although Lopez had not seen the picture prior to being interviewed, he said he had been made aware of the issue on Wednesday of the election week. Lopez said that he did not put the fliers there, and that he "explained to people helping me that they could not put them [in the breezeway], could not put them near computers."
He does not feel that the fliers had a large effect on the vote, believing that they were there for "maybe a couple of hours."
Dean of Students Don Turney said it is hard to place judgment on a candidate for breaking these rules. "My opinion is that every candidate committed some kind of infraction," he continued. "From candidates campaigning 99 feet from the polling place, to candidates speaking in classrooms that have computers. There could have been campaign posters out on the Saturday before official campaigning was allowed to begin."
He concluded his statement by saying, "My point is, where do the restrictions end? Why does one infraction bear more weight than another?"
Current SGA Legislative Liaison Alan Crane, who was Lopez's opponent in the election, said he campaigned in a classroom with computers. "Technically," he said, "I was campaigning in a polling place."
However, Crane defended the action by pointing out that the computers were not powered on, and it would have been very unlikely that any student would be able to log on to vote, since they were in the middle of a class session.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 5
joshsears
Josh Sears
posted 4/25/07 @ 10:32 PM PST
The loose lipped language that the administration and student leaders used in the interviews is scarry.
How legit does a student election have to be in order be valid? Well with that attitude I think Card and everyone who thinks that way should apply to be members of President Bush's cabinet. (Continued…)
Potio
posted 5/25/07 @ 12:20 AM PST
"If Lopez won fair and square, then there is nothing to worry about."
Erm, he didn't win fair and square and that's the point.
The interesting part is that no one has, as of yet, made clear their intentions to upset the vote. (Continued…)
yanualia
posted 6/02/07 @ 11:53 AM PST
I think that it's not fair to the other people that do work hard for their votes to have a cheater around and the cheater should be excluded of the voting and the cadidate she was voting for should be kicked off . (Continued…)
joshsears
Josh Sears
posted 6/02/07 @ 1:23 PM PST
I am not a student at your campus, but if you are a student on campus you should take the action required to justify the position you have taken. Any student should be able to appeal to the elections committee. (Continued…)
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