Following a ruling last Sunday by the Student Senate’s Rules and Elections Committee that permitted President of the Union candidate Peter Baldwin ’06 to work community service instead of turning in additional punitive nomination signatures for office, opposing candidate Rachel Evans ’06 filed an appeal with the Judicial Board to overturn that decision.
Evans said that the J-Board has decided to hear the case, but the results of that hearing were not available as of press time. J-Board Chair Matt Ezovski declined to comment, saying that the board does not discuss pending or possible cases.
RNE said in their decision that they were permitting the exchange because doing so would foster a competitive election, since Baldwin had argued he was unable to solicit the 750 nomination signatures that were necessary following several sanctions issued against him by the committee.
“I feel like it’s not their job to make sure there are people on the ballot,” Evans said of her reasons for filing the case. “It’s their job to make sure an election is fair.”
While normally a student running for PU must obtain 500 signatures from students endorsing him as a candidate, RNE penalized Baldwin an additional 250 signatures following his efforts to solicit signatures from students in the dining area of the Commons, which the Commons staff asked be placed off limits this year. When a complaint was filed, RNE invalidated two of his signature forms, which had been filled out in the Commons, and then penalized him with an additional 36 signatures.
Baldwin was then granted a 24-hour extension to solicit the signatures upon appeal, and 64 more signatures were added to his total, ostensibly to make the extension fairer to the other candidates. Baldwin entered the Commons again to solicit signatures, and was subsequently penalized another 150 by RNE. He again appealed, saying 750 signatures was beyond what could be reasonably expected of him, and RNE decided that for every hour of community service he pledged to do, Baldwin would receive 25 signatures. It is this decision that Evans is appealing.
Both Evans and running mate Robert Otlowski said that they feel that RNE is not standing by its decisions this year. They think RNE is not handing out harsh enough punishments in some cases as well as not enforcing the ones that, in Evans’ and Otlowski’s minds, were appropriate.
“I do feel they’re not being strict enough with the rules,” Otlowski said. “If a member of my party were to break the rules, I hope they’d come down on them harder than they have on Genesis.”
Baldwin, however, felt that the punishments levied against him were inappropriate, and that the earlier sanctions issued against his Genesis Party were overly harsh.
Baldwin said that he thinks RNE has “abused their power” this year, and no matter how the election turns out, he plans on addressing the Senate concerning RNE and asking for reform. He feels that compared to other years, RNE is being stricter with their interpretation of the rules, and handing out stricter punishments. For example, he described an incident his freshman year where he did not sign the bottom of a sheet of signatures, and was merely asked to come in and do so, whereas this year when he did not fill out the name of the position he was running for, the sheet was invalidated.
“I never felt my rights have been violated more as a student and I want to make sure that this never happens again,” Baldwin said. “It seems like Genesis or Max and I are being singled out.”
RNE Chair Matt Newman ’05 said that the incomplete form was invalidated because there was no way of knowing whether the average student signing that form knew that he was nominating Baldwin for PU. “You can’t assume the people who signed the form knew what the race was for when they signed the form,” he said. He said that he understands that some of the decisions have been different this year compared to other years, but contended that the election itself is different considering new rules such as the ban on campaigning in the Commons.
Newman also objected to the allegations of bias, saying that there have been more violations issued against Genesis because there have been more complaints against Genesis. “It’s nothing about the committee having a vendetta against anybody. It’s about enforcing the rules and dealing with complaints as they come in,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who wins or loses as long as the process is done fairly.”
Otlowski and Evans agreed that they do not believe that Genesis is being discriminated against, but they do not think that the punishments issued have been appropriately handled. “I feel like they’re saying, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as there are two people on your ballot,’” Evans criticized.
“I think RNE, overall, is doing a great job,” Otlowski said, “but I do feel they’re not being strict enough with the rules.”
Other violations RNE has handed out this season have prohibited Genesis from postering in Amos Eaton and in the Union, prohibited Hannah Kim and Stephanie Tanous from placing posters on any glass surfaces for placing them on glass doors, and prohibited Max Yates and Baldwin from placing signs in the CII and DCC. Otlowski criticized the sanctions, saying they were not as stringent as they should have been given the violations.
