The Undergraduate Council presidential campaign of Roy T. Willey IV ’09 and running mate Nicholas B. Snow ’09 is nearing its campaign spending limit as a result of repeated violations, according to a UC Election Commission official, and currently runs the risk of being removed from the ballot for the remainder of the voting period.
The Willey-Snow ticket was most recently handed a 100 dollar penalty for sending out an e-mail that was illegally blind carbon-copied (bcc'd) to several people, including a member of the election commission and the blockmate of an opposing candidate, commission official James W. Anderson ’09 told The Crimson. The commission’s official rules for the election explicitly prohibit the use of unsolicited e-mail campaigning in forums beyond open e-mail lists.
“No person is to be sent e-mail regarding the campaign via BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) unless that person has given explicit prior permission to be sent e-mail via BCC,” the rules state.
The violation will not be officially assessed until the pair has a chance to appeal tonight, Anderson said. If approved tonight, the penalty will put the Willey-Snow campaign at the 395.95 dollar mark of the 400 dollars in campaign expenditures that the election commission allows each candidate.
Anderson said the commission was anticipating that, by tonight’s meeting, the campaign would have gone over the spending limit, either as a result of further campaign spending today, or further violations.
He also noted that the election commission, whose members have all served on it in the past, had already been very lenient with the Willey-Snow ticket, making it unlikely that the penalty would be further softened.
“None of us have seen the type of repeated violations that this campaign is committed,” he said. “And none of us can remember being so lenient towards any campaign more than this one.” So far, the ticket has been cited frequently for postering and other e-mail violations.
According to the commission’s rules, “if a campaign commits a number of violations such that its entire 400 dollar spending limit is penalized, the EC may make a determination that the campaign merits disqualification.”
But if the limit is breached, a far more likely course of action, Anderson said, would be the removal of the Willey-Snow ticket from the online ballot, so that no more votes could be cast in their favor before the close of voting at midday tomorrow. The votes already tallied in favor of the ticket would still count, he added.
Rahul Prabhakar '09, campaign manager for Willey-Snow, said that he was “confident” that his campaign would challenge the violation successfully, and that he was not worried about his candidates being taken off of the ballot.
“We're not worried about being taken off the ballot given that its already Thursday afternoon and there are literally right now less than 20 hours left until voting closes,” Prabhakar said. “We can take the hit on any violations.”
Prabhakar, who is advising two candidates without any UC experience, added that he believed that the election commission’s rules had been “manipulated by insiders to make it easier for incumbents,” and criticized the rival campaign of UC insiders Matthew L. Sundquist ’09 and Randall S. Sarafa ’09 for having staffers solely devoted to looking for violations in opposing campaigns.
Vice presidential candidate Sarafa said today that he believed that there has to be accountability in the election process.
“I think that there are rules in this election,” he said. “And if there are tickets that have violated those rules enough for them to be disqualified, then that is a consequence of their breaking the rules over and over.”
—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.
The Willey-Snow ticket was most recently handed a 100 dollar penalty for sending out an e-mail that was illegally blind carbon-copied (bcc'd) to several people, including a member of the election commission and the blockmate of an opposing candidate, commission official James W. Anderson ’09 told The Crimson. The commission’s official rules for the election explicitly prohibit the use of unsolicited e-mail campaigning in forums beyond open e-mail lists.
“No person is to be sent e-mail regarding the campaign via BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) unless that person has given explicit prior permission to be sent e-mail via BCC,” the rules state.
The violation will not be officially assessed until the pair has a chance to appeal tonight, Anderson said. If approved tonight, the penalty will put the Willey-Snow campaign at the 395.95 dollar mark of the 400 dollars in campaign expenditures that the election commission allows each candidate.
Anderson said the commission was anticipating that, by tonight’s meeting, the campaign would have gone over the spending limit, either as a result of further campaign spending today, or further violations.
He also noted that the election commission, whose members have all served on it in the past, had already been very lenient with the Willey-Snow ticket, making it unlikely that the penalty would be further softened.
“None of us have seen the type of repeated violations that this campaign is committed,” he said. “And none of us can remember being so lenient towards any campaign more than this one.” So far, the ticket has been cited frequently for postering and other e-mail violations.
According to the commission’s rules, “if a campaign commits a number of violations such that its entire 400 dollar spending limit is penalized, the EC may make a determination that the campaign merits disqualification.”
But if the limit is breached, a far more likely course of action, Anderson said, would be the removal of the Willey-Snow ticket from the online ballot, so that no more votes could be cast in their favor before the close of voting at midday tomorrow. The votes already tallied in favor of the ticket would still count, he added.
Rahul Prabhakar '09, campaign manager for Willey-Snow, said that he was “confident” that his campaign would challenge the violation successfully, and that he was not worried about his candidates being taken off of the ballot.
“We're not worried about being taken off the ballot given that its already Thursday afternoon and there are literally right now less than 20 hours left until voting closes,” Prabhakar said. “We can take the hit on any violations.”
Prabhakar, who is advising two candidates without any UC experience, added that he believed that the election commission’s rules had been “manipulated by insiders to make it easier for incumbents,” and criticized the rival campaign of UC insiders Matthew L. Sundquist ’09 and Randall S. Sarafa ’09 for having staffers solely devoted to looking for violations in opposing campaigns.
Vice presidential candidate Sarafa said today that he believed that there has to be accountability in the election process.
“I think that there are rules in this election,” he said. “And if there are tickets that have violated those rules enough for them to be disqualified, then that is a consequence of their breaking the rules over and over.”
—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.
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