The ASUO Elections Board has barred 29 candidates from campaigning Wednesday because they did not submit financial information on time.
Oregon Action Team, the election’s largest slate with 23 candidates, has declared it will disregard the board’s ruling and continue to campaign despite being named in the ruling. If the board takes further action, Oregon Action Team’s campaign manager, Marcus Krieg, said the slate will contact the American Civil Liberties Union and file grievances with the University.
Oregon Action Team missed the April 2 filing deadline for disclosing the amounts the slate received in contributions and spent on its campaign. ASUO Elections Coordinator Aaron Tuttle said the elections board had decided Friday to prevent candidates who had missed the deadline from campaigning for 24 hours starting 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. The slate’s presidential candidate, EMU Board Chair Michelle Haley, called the ruling “unconstitutional.” She said the restriction, which would prevent her campaign from wearing campaign shirts or distributing literature, violates the First Amendment and the election’s own rules.
Three of her rivals released a joint statement Monday condemning Haley’s campaign.
“If the leaders of the Oregon Action Team can’t abide by the basic rules governing ASUO elections, we believe this casts doubt on their ability to govern fairly and effectively if elected,” the True Blue Student Coalition and independent campaigns under Emma Kallaway and Ryan McCarrel wrote in the joint statement.
Krieg said the slate did not file the appropriate forms because it assumed they were no longer necessary once the $1,500 mandatory spending cap by the elections board was ruled unconstitutional. Once the elections board notified the campaign of the missed deadline, Krieg said, it filed its forms promptly.
Krieg called the statement an attempt to divert attention from the issues of the campaign and said campaign spending is unimportant to voters. “I don’t think the everyday student actually goes on and clicks the ASUO Web site and looks at how much every candidate is spending and decides from that,” Krieg said.
However, in their statement, the slate’s rivals said they “believe that the failure to file a mandatory campaign expenditures form by a campaign that spent over $10,000 in last year’s election demonstrates a serious disregard for the campaign rules and the students they are meant to protect.”
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz campaigned with Oregon Action Team last year and officially raised more than $9,428, though some speculate he spent more. Krieg said he was not a part of Dotters-Katz’s campaign and was unaware of how much was spent. Kallaway called the number “an approximation.” “It’s my understanding that the slate was very, very large last year and there was funding from a couple of different sources,” Kallaway said.
Students First candidates Carina Miller and Nick Gower did not endorse the statement. Miller said she abstained from doing so to allow the elections board’s ruling to stand on its own. Miller and Gower said they agreed with the board’s decision.
The elections board’s ruling came on a busy and often bitter day for the election. Oregon Action Team faced additional controversy when McCarrel accused candidates on the slate of handing out free energy drinks to students.
Haley denied McCarrel’s accusation. She said many of the slate’s candidates were sales representatives for energy drink manufacturers, and that representatives had set up a distribution point near the Oregon Action Team’s campaign trailer. “True Blue was stopping people nearby too,” Haley said. “It’s a good way of getting people to stop. It’s a good tactic.”
Haley and her running mate Ted Sebastian said they would spend the evening soliciting support in Greek houses. Eleven of the slate’s candidates are in fraternities or sororities. While other candidates campaign in Greek houses and voice support for Greek leaders, Senate candidate Demic Tipitino said, “Oregon Action Team is Greek Life.”
Haley, Sebastian and six other Oregon Action Team candidates on Monday also received the endorsement of the Pit Crew, another reliable constituency for Oregon Action Team’s side of campus politics. “I think that’s pretty baller,” Krieg said.
Across the street from Oregon Action Team’s trailer, the Students First slate set up a campaign headquarters of its own in a trailer Miller said was owned by Senate candidate Hailey Sheldon’s father. Miller said the trailer would likely be listed as a donation.
“We’re trying to list everything down to the glitter we use for the signs,” Miller said.
True Blue Senate candidate and spokesperson Curtis Haley said his slate spent Saturday knocking on more than 600 doors in Ducks Village, Stadium Park and Chase Village apartments, and would spend evenings this week phoning friends to talk about the campaign.
“We’re finding out that all of the candidates have very similar ideas,” he said, pointing to wide support for late night bus service and a continuation of keeping Knight Library open 24 hours on school nights. “Where we’re trying to differentiate ourselves by showing in our actions how much we care about this and how hard we are willing to work to do it.”
McCarrel also appeared on the corner of 15th Street and University Avenue, talking to students about his iGovernment proposal. He said students were receptive to his message. Kallaway said her campaign volunteers are collecting cards to send to state legislators advocating greater state support for higher education. She said her campaign had not yet decided whether it would use contact information collected on the cards to get out the vote.
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Robert D’Andrea and Tristan Coolen contributed to this article.
Correction appended