A University student filed a grievance against the Jared Axelrod and Juliana Guzman
Executive campaign Thursday afternoon, and the grievance was dismissed later that evening by the ASUO Elections Board.
The grievance filed by Resident Hall Assistant Meghan Shumaker said Axelrod campaign members violated elections policy by promoting in residence halls.
Elections Coordinator Ryan Coussens and Elections Manager Dante Vivanco investigated the grievance and ruled in favor of Axelrod and Guzman late Thursday evening. A statement released by the elections board said “there was no proof of campaigning,” and “allegations were overly broad and unsupported.”
Elections policy states that “Candidates who are guests in the residence halls should be escorted by a resident of the hall,” and “need to refrain from soliciting or campaigning to other residents in the halls and dining facilities.”
Shumaker, who lives in the Caswell residence hall in the Bean complex, filed the grievance after Senate hopefuls Bryanna Mannis and Wannita Nualngam entered the hall wearing orange “Jared and Juliana” campaign shirts, and carrying campaign flyers. The two were escorted by undergraduate Leslie Logan, a resident of the hall.
During Coussens and Vivanco’s investigation, Logan said she invited the campaigners, one of whom she was friends with, into the hall to introduce them to her friends after she met them outside of Pizano’s Pizzeria.
“I started talking to them, and I was just going to help them, hang out with them,” Logan said.
She said she didn’t bring the campaign members door to door to solicit and brought them only into the rooms of her friends if their doors were already open.
“If the door was open I would go into it or just kind of stand outside of it, because in Caswell it’s mainly an open-door policy hall. We just kind of walk in and out of each other’s rooms,” Logan said.
Logan said she would make small talk with her friends that she encountered before mentioning anything about the campaign, and mostly spoke about the election in general terms.
“A lot of people don’t even know what the ASUO is,” she said.
Logan went to Shumaker’s door to inquire about a pet fish she had cared for previously, and Shumaker subsequently saw the campaign members alongside Logan.
According to the grievance, Shumaker asked the three if they were campaigning in the hall and they answered that they were, but it was acceptable because they were escorted by a resident.
“I told them I was pretty sure it was a violation with campaign policy but they insisted that it wasn’t,” Shumaker said. “I mean, I wasn’t going to push it with them.”
Coussens said because Shumaker didn’t actually witness the campaign members actively campaigning, only seeing them at her door, there is no grounds for punishment to the Jared and Juliana campaign.
Shumaker said she filed the grievance because she finds it irritating when campaigners enter the halls.
“The residence halls are a place where students live. It’s where we sleep and where we study, and I don’t really feel like people should be soliciting within the halls,” she said.
Axelrod and his campaign manager, Ashley Rees, said at the time of the incident Shumaker was wearing a campaign T-shirt for rival candidates Todd Mann and Jontae Grace.
Shumaker also denied any involvement in his campaign. Mann, the current Resident Hall Association president, denied that Shumaker was involved in his campaign.
Caswell resident Ryan Spiker said that he had seen Shumaker wearing the campaign shirt on multiple occasions.
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