We Are Oregon campaign manager Taylor Allison filed a grievance against the UO Forward slate on Thursday, calling for the removal of Helena Schlegel from the ASUO presidential ticket.
The grievance claims that Schlegel’s executive campaign began pre-maturely and that Schlegel wrongfully used contact information she gathered from a petition filed to the board of trustees.
The UO Forward campaign is calling it a “distraction technique.”
The petition mentioned in the grievance was circulated in early March, about one month before active campaigning was allowed for ASUO elections.
The petition called for the board of trustees to freeze tuition. Schlegel is the student representative to the board. Allison provided screenshots of conversations between Schlegel and other members of the slate about gathering numbers.
“The screenshots establish that they knew they were collecting the contact information to benefit their slate in the election, which makes it a campaign, and the gathering was done before primary voting,” the grievance states.
Allison was part of the hiring committee that appointed Schlegel as the student member of the board of trustees.
“To misuse her position to gain thousands of students’ information and basically mislead the student just didn’t feel right to me as someone who’s worked in student government for four years,” Allison said.
UO Forward campaign manager Casey Edwards said the campaign is drafting a response to the grievance, calling it “a distraction technique used by We Are Oregon.”
According to Edwards, Schlegel presented the forms gathered to the board of trustees and later, after the motion to raise tuition carried, traveled to Salem over spring break to further advocate for a tuition freeze.
“That was the use of the petitions,” Edwards said.
Ducks F.I.R.S.T presidential candidate Joaquin Ramos was not aware of the grievance before the Emerald contacted him for comment.
In addition to the removing Schlegel and her vice presidents Francisco Morales-O’Connor and Claire Johnson from the ballot, We Are Oregon asked for Senate seate 8 candidate Andrew Dunn’s removal as well.
If the elections board doesn’t rule before the end of the general election, Allison says a new election should be held.
Edwards said Schlegel was in a meeting and could not immediately respond to calls for comment.
In addition, the grievance asks that all the contact information in question be turned over to the elections board for destruction and that UO Forward be suspended from active campaigning for 24 hours.
Voting for the general election closes Friday on DuckWeb at 4 p.m.

Allison Grievance

The Elections Board will make its decision regarding the grievance and its potential effects on the primary results Saturday morning.
Follow Kaylee Tornay on Twitter @ka_tornay