By Darcy Costello and Lexie Schapitl
In the upcoming SGA elections, students will have one choice in party ticket for all 29 positions with candidates running, as only one party is eligible to campaign to represent the student body.
The Bold Party, headed by Katherine Swanson, the current vice president of student affairs who is now running for student body president, was the only party to successfully file for a ticket and candidacy by the March 25 deadline. One student who registered as an independent, not on the Bold Party ticket, was eligible to run but withdrew her name.
J.T. Stanley, a senior individual studies major who will be returning to the University of Maryland next year and had planned to run for Student Government Association president but missed the deadline, appealed his ineligibility unsuccessfully. He contends that there was misconduct by the Elections Board and requested a three-week extension for elections, which he said would allow other interested parties to register.
To apply for candidacy, a student was required to attend both an information session and an SGA general body meeting. The Elections Board listed three potential dates for each required meeting, asking students to attend one of each. A total of 53 students met that requirement, said James Gray, Elections Board chairman.
“Those are people who, as far as I’m concerned, should they have chosen to file for candidacy and should they have been deemed financially, academically and judicially eligible by the registrar, would be on the ballot no problem,” he said.
Instead, 29 appear.
Stanley had planned to also file for candidacy for the rest of the candidates on his ticket, but because he missed the deadline, a number of students expecting to run under Stanley’s Voice Party do not appear on the ballot.
He contested this with a formal appeal submitted April 1 to the Elections Board, an appointed board of five students who oversee the election process. The Elections Board responded to the appeal April 2 and denied the extension, citing that a three-week extension would push campaigning and voting into finals week.
Stanley then appealed to the Governance Board, a body within SGA used to settle disputes. The board confirmed it had received Stanley’s appeal and decided not to move forward with a hearing.
Current SGA President Patrick Ronk said he is disappointed there is only one party running, as a contested election makes the process more legitimate and allows students to hear different points of view.
“It reflects really poorly on the SGA,” he said. “What does it say when we only have one person running? You know, it’s not a choice then. There’s no write-in option, so it’s not like anyone else can run. It’s unfortunate.”
Stanley said the one-party race is a result of misconduct that stems further back than his missed deadline. He contends the Elections Board failed to properly publicize the election events, improperly exercised their discretion on excused absences and had inappropriate connections to the current SGA and to members of the Bold Party.
“The complaint filed is on my behalf, my party’s behalf [and] also the students disenfranchised by the process. This is more than just me,” Stanley said. “This is really an issue of severe, gross negligence.”
Gray was nominated to serve as Elections Board chairman by Ronk, as is set up in the SGA bylaws. During the SGA’s approval process, members brought up the fact that Gray is Ronk’s roommate — a relationship that Stanley finds problematic. Ultimately, Gray was unanimously approved by the legislature.
Ronk pointed to the open discussion about their relationship as proof that there was nothing hidden or underhanded.
“Frankly, I thought it was smart to appoint my roommate, because I trust him,” Ronk said. “He’s graduating, so he has no stake in who’s really SGA president next year, so he can do it fairly.”
Stanley also found issue with the advertisement of the SGA election process, as he discusses in the appeal. This year, the Elections Board advertised the election application through a Facebook event rather than a website, as had been done in previous years.
The Facebook event was announced at SGA meetings and members were encouraged to share it on their personal pages, Gray said. But, as Stanley points out in his appeal, it was not posted to the main SGA Facebook page until March 22 at 11:44 p.m., when only one information session and one general body meeting were left on the calendar.
Currently, the Facebook event “Learn More about 2016 SGA Elections,” shows 150 invited students, 29 who went and four who were interested — a fraction of the entire undergraduate student body.
“If you look at the election rules … it says that it’s our job to publicize the elections and the application process as we see fit,” Gray said. “Nowhere does it mention that we have to create a website.”
In lieu of a website, the election rules and other documents were also posted on the main SGA website and are available there, Ronk said.
Additionally, Stanley finds fault with the Elections Board’s process of excusing absences for interested candidates unable to attend either an information session or SGA meeting. At different times, he said, it would accept class excuses and religious excuses for absences without notifying the general public of what would qualify as an excused absence.
The Elections Board members said they responded to each excuse that they got on a case-by-case basis.
“Some people I was able to work something out with. … One person had a class commitment; the other person it was a religious holiday and they couldn’t come,” Gray said. Stanley “created the impression that there were throngs and throngs of people who this was a huge problem for, and then I never heard from any of them, with the exception of one or two.”
Ronk said the election application process was advertised to the same extent as previous years and that Stanley’s failure to file was not the fault of the SGA or the Elections Board.
“There was no large barrier to entry; all [Stanley] had to do was file for candidacy, and he never did,” he said. “I just don’t understand why he’s trying to accuse us of this big corrupt thing when it’s really his fault.”
Stanley, however, argues that the Elections Board made the application process unfairly difficult — violating practices and procedures in the process — thus going against the spirit of the SGA, which he believes ought to encourage openness and fairness.
“The point is, is that the bar that they elevated, it was elevated against the spirit of SGA, it was elevated breaking away from SGA election rule guidelines, it was elevated in a way which reaches a breach of administrative law,” he said. They’re “effectively, whether that is their intention or not … going to coronate Patrick’s vice president without any discourse.”
