The Progressive Students Starting Today voting bloc violated ASUO election rules Wednesday when members posted multiple PSST fliers on student group doors on the bottom floor of the EMU, ASUO Elections Coordinator Stephanie Day said.
According to election rules, campaign material promoting a specific candidate or group of candidates may be posted on public bulletin boards, but not on doors or windows.
Day said the ASUO Elections Board will not punish the group for the violations because the board does not think it is a serious enough problem to warrant discipline. She added that the board does have the power to impose sanctions on candidates, including removal from the ballot, if they determine circumstances justify it.
“The election board’s goal is to avoid going through the grievance process when a problem arises,” Day said. “The elections board sees no reason to invoke anything. We asked them to take it down. They did. I see no need to take any further action.”
PSST, a group of 13 ASUO candidates, hopes to “give a voice to the voiceless who right now are the majority of the student population,” according to the group’s platform.
Day said she didn’t know how many fliers were posted, but she said she removed a few. After contacting PSST, members of that group “removed others that I wasn’t aware of,” she said, adding that PSST members were all informed they couldn’t post on doors.
But PSST member Khanh Le called the rules “very vague,” adding that the group was confused by the “broad issues.”
“We’ve been working together to make sure nobody violates any rules,” he said. “Most of the regulations out here are very vague.”
Section 6.2 of the ASUO elections rules states that “Campaign material may not be posted (affixed by any method) on, in or to any University building…” The provision cites several exceptions to the rule, such as distributing flyers in the EMU and posting them on bulletin boards.ASUO Student Senate candidate Spencer Hardy saw the fliers Wednesday and approached the elections board with his complaint. Hardy estimates he saw four or five fliers, some of which were posted on doors and windows in the hallway between the LGBTQA and the Black Student Union. He said he didn’t know how long the fliers had been there.
“We decided not to go for a grievance because basically it just creates a bunch of hassle and extra paperwork,” Hardy said. “At this point, although I was just walking in the multicultural hall, and I did see some PSST posters reposted where they had been removed. So, I plan on talking with the elections board tomorrow and checking up about that.”