UO Forward is banned from campaigning for the rest of the week after the Constitution Court overturned the Elections Board’s dismissal of We Are Oregon’s grievance against the campaign.
That means no more campaigning for the slate before voting closes this Friday.
The grievance that stopped the campaigning was submitted last Thursday, April 2. It stated that Helena Schlegel and UO Forward violated elections rules by using a petition calling for the Board of Trustees to freeze tuition to also collect student phone numbers, a form of campaigning that was not allowed at the time of the petition. We Are Oregon campaign manager Taylor Allison submitted screenshots of text messages and a recorded phone call from a UO Forward volunteer to Miles Sisk, We Are Oregon’s presidential candidate, as evidence of the violation. The original grievance called for Schlegel and the rest of the executive ticket, in addition to a senate candidate, to be removed from the ballot.
On Saturday April 4, the Elections Board dismissed the grievance, saying that there was not evidence to prove the violation “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Allison then appealed the decision to the Constitution Court that same evening.
The Constitution Court said that it used a standard of “clear and convincing evidence” to determine that the rules in question had been broken and that the nature of the violations was severe.
“Though the primary purpose of collecting students’ contact information was to submit a Petition to the UO Board of Trustees, there was another clear intended purpose as well, which was to use the contact information obtained from the petition for their campaign,” the decision reads.
UO Forward is now banned from all activities that involved direct contact with voters for the rest of the week. This includes canvassing, phone banking, events and street-teaming. Voting will continue and close on DuckWeb on Friday April 10.