Student government’s Elections Board has found former ASUO president and vice president hopefuls Dallas Brown and Emily McLain’s ticket guilty of offering discounts on keg cups in exchange for votes – preferably for their ticket – at a party Thursday night.
Campaign officers say the board failed to investigate fairly.
The decision came less than two hours after a University student filed a grievance Friday afternoon against Brown and McLain, claiming they violated elections rules.
An Emerald article Friday reported that supporters of the Brown-McLain ticket offered discounts on keg cups at a party in exchange for voting and encouraged some people to vote for Brown. He denied that his campaign organized the party.
The ASUO Elections Board promised punishment against Brown and McLain, stating that selling alcohol at a discount for votes while encouraging voters to endorse a specific ticket “is a direct violation” of elections rules.
Brown and McLain placed fourth out of the five ASUO Executive tickets and will not advance to this week’s general elections, which begin today at 9 a.m. and end Friday at 5 p.m.
Biology major Evan Stewart, who filed the grievance, may have been influenced by an officer of the ASUO Executive, despite the current ASUO president and vice president’s suggestion that all staff members remain neutral during the elections. That officer denies influencing him. The ASUO Elections Rules state that providing a “thing of value in return for compliance with such efforts to promote or oppose an election or ballot measure outcome” is prohibited.
“I think we all agree that alcohol qualifies as ‘something of value’,” Stewart wrote in his grievance, adding that such a promotional party “could severely skew the ASUO primary election results,” which were released at 5 p.m. Friday evening. Only the Jared Axelrod-Juliana Guzman and Todd Mann-Jontae Grace tickets advanced to the general elections.
As punishment for the party, the Elections Board said that if Brown and McLain would have advanced to the general election they wouldn’t have been able to campaign between 2 p.m. and 10 a.m., hours during which ASUO Elections Coordinator Ryan Coussens said people would be most likely to drink.
The investigation process
The Elections Board’s decision to sanction the Brown-McLain ticket is drawing criticism from those who say the board was unfair because it based its ruling on the Emerald article and the testimony of former Emerald news reporter Katy Gagnon, but didn’t talk to anyone from the ticket.
The Emerald sent Gagnon to the party on Thursday night to confirm rumors that supporters of the Brown-McLain ticket were holding a campaign party to get people to vote for the ticket.
“I know it sounds ridiculous. Who doesn’t get two sides of a story? But with the investigation we found that the campaign is at fault of a violation,” Coussens said.
Gagnon told Coussens that she had been offered a discount on a keg cup if she voted at the party.
“The second she told us that, we were like, ‘OK, that’s all we need,’” he said.
Coussens did not get Brown and McLain’s side because, he said, he believed what he heard from Gagnon and the Emerald article published Friday.
“This is someone that I am counting on as a legitimate person of society,” Coussens said of Gagnon. “This person was someone who worked for the Emerald, that means I take their word for some kind of legitimacy in society … So whatever (Emerald reporters) decide is fine. But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve heard what I’ve heard.”
In their response, Brown and McLain state that Stewart has no factual evidence because he was not at the party and because the grievance filed against the Axelrod-Guzman ticket last week was dismissed because the filer of the grievance had not witnessed anyone campaigning in the residence halls.
“One rule should apply to all campaigns for a fair election,” Brown and McLain’s written response states, and all grievances should be held to the same standards.
“I was bothered by the process because it seems that there was a lack of adherence to rules and regulations and also just general standards of the legal process. There was a ruling without the convicted party’s response,” McLain said.
Brown was unavailable for comment.
All grievances, whether against the Elections Board or candidates, must be ruled on before election results can be released. Stewart filed the grievance just two hours before the primary election results were to be released by DuckWeb.
Only Coussens and Elections Board investigator Lisa Harris were present when the ruling was made, Coussens said. Student government rules state that the board’s Hearings Committee must include at least three board members.
Campaign Manager Becca Shively wrote in an e-mail that campaign supporters, not volunteers, hosted the party, “therefore we cannot accept responsibility for any illegitimate campaigning.
Brown and McLain said they both attended, and the Emerald has confirmed that six of the seven campaign officers attended the party. Shively said she didn’t attend.
University student Alison Becker, who hosted the party, said Thursday night that the party was not for Brown and McLain. Brown said he and Becker are just friends and that she invited him to the party Thursday night. Becker is listed as a member of the “Dallas & Emily for ASUO Executive” Facebook group.
“To me it looked like … this was organized by his campaign committee, but who knows for sure whether it was,” Coussens said.
Origins of the grievance
Stewart, who filed the original grievance, may have been influenced by an ASUO Executive official who has been advised by the ASUO president and vice president against getting involved in election-related politics.
ASUO Programs Administrator David Goward told Coussens on Friday he was contemplating filing a grievance but decided against it. Goward denied Friday that he urged Stewart to file a grievance for him.
Goward decided not to file because ASUO representatives were asked to remain neutral during the elections, he said.
Early Friday morning, Coussens told the Emerald that someone – he couldn’t say who – was planning on filing a grievance against the Brown-McLain ticket, but that person wouldn’t be able to hand it in personally because he or she was going out of town Friday morning. The person told Coussens that a friend would drop off the grievance, Coussens said.
Goward, who said he told Coussens at about 2 a.m. Friday that he was thinking of filing a grievance, told the Emerald he left town Friday for Redding, Calif.
Goward is dating Stewart.
“My influence is none. I do not control my boyfriend or what he does,” Goward said.
Vice President Kyla Coy said he had the option to get involved in the elections, and that it was Goward’s choice to remain neutral.
ASUO President Adam Walsh said he would deal with the situation on a case-by-case basis if Goward was found to have urged Stewart to file the grievance.
Stewart said he filed the grievance on his own accord, but he said that he didn’t even know what a grievance was until he met Goward.
Stewart told the Emerald that when he heard that nobody had filed a grievance, he decided he would.
“I was talking to (Goward) about it. He said that no one had filed one all day, because (Goward) had called (to check),” Stewart said.
“Evan never knew that I was even contemplating it,” Goward said.

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