The election for Student Council president usually draws the most attention during spring elections. This year is no exception, as the race has been particularly polarizing with endorsements split between the candidates. After the events of the past two weeks, it's no surprise that most students were hoping to put this year's spring elections behind them. Friday's Council presidential election has gone into overtime, though, and candidates Ed Hallen and Daisy Lundy will compete in a run-off election today and tomorrow. However, anyone who has paid close attention to the election will realize Ed Hallen has been given a raw deal.
Leading up to the election, as is expected, the six endorsing bodies of the University backed their respective candidates in the presidential race. Nothing is wrong with this behavior; the trouble started after a series of Cavalier Daily articles on Feb. 12 and 13 ("Exec Board says non-CIO's cannot endorse," "Candidates implicated in endorsement controversy"). By Monday of last week, The Cavalier Daily's coveragemay have given many students a negative impression of Hallen -- that he was somehow conspiring with the Council Executive Board to attempt to steal the election. While not all the actions of the Executive Board can be defended, it is clear that Hallen was wrongfully dragged into the mess.
The investigation into the Coalition and First Year Council endorsements was not sparked by the actions of Ed Hallen. Yes, Hallen is friends with some members of Council, but after devoting three years of his University career to the organization, this is to be expected. In addition, Hallen is mentioned nowhere in the "smoking gun" e-mail sent out by Student Council President Micah Schwartz, so it's hard to believe Hallen played a significant role in the endorsement controversy.
The suspicion associated with Hallen and the endorsement controversy was particularly damaging. As opposed to normal state or national elections, which often span anywhere from three to six months, elections at the University take place within a very compact timeframe. The timeframe means that any suspicion or hint of scandal -- no matter if it's justified -- is magnified. When students read a story that negatively portrays one candidate and then vote three or four days later, it can be assumed that they might remember what they've read and seen in the past week and factor this into their voting decision.
After election results were announced last Friday, it was also revealed that Lundy was docked 2 percent from her vote total for campaign violations. At the Rules and Ethics Board hearing yesterday, Lundy suggested that she should not be held responsible for her supporters, who act without her consent and perpetrate election violations. While it is true that Lundy renounced the endorsements of the First Year Council and the Coalition, Lundy should have known that these groups would continue to support her. She should have read the Student Council Elections Rules and Regulations, which explicitly detail the dos and don'ts of campaigning, known to them.
The Elections Committee acknowledged at yesterday's hearing that Lundy's campaign and supporters violated housing solicitation (going door-to-door) rules and also violated general election rules by chalking on non-concrete surfaces and defacing a Hallen etching in the snow. While these may seem relatively benign, there is an old adage that goes, "where there's smoke, there's fire." While clearly Lundy should not be indicted without evidence or fact, why has all the suspicion been placed on the Hallen campaign and not Lundy's?
One of the more disturbing revelations from last week's presidential election was of e-mails sent by Dean of the University's Office of African-American Affairs M. Rick Turner. The e-mails utilized a graduate and undergraduate list server that sends emails to every African-American member of the University community unless they voluntarily remove themselves. The e-mails referred to "events that occurred last week" and urged students to vote for Lundy with a link provided in the e-mail. While the Election Committee commented that the mailings were not an elections violation, the sending of mass e-mails by the director of a sub-unit of the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs has to raise ethical questions. When the director of a University service subunit presses students to vote for a certain candidate, this seriously impedes the notion of student self-governance at the University.
The actions of Turner again should have placed more of an onus on Lundy's campaign and not Hallen. Throughout the campaign Hallen has not been cited for a single campaign violation and was wrongfully linked with the scandal involving the Council Executive Board and its endorsement policy. Students should realize that a run-off election is in the interest of fairness and will allow voters to chose a Council president without the unnecessary scandal and suspicion that has marred the Hallen campaign for the past two weeks.
(Joe Schilling is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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