• Share
  • Share this item

    Send this to a friend

  • Grab the link

    Copy and paste the link:

  • Blog about it

    Blog about this page.

  • Close
• Comment
• Facebook
• Digg
• Delicious
• Print

Alex Porte, vice presidential candidate for Envision, filed a complaint with the Student Senate elections commission on Sunday against United Students vice presidential candidate May Davis for tampering with the election process.

“Our complaint is, essentially, that May used her social and political position to exploit these two girls on the elections commission for information,” said Porte, Great Falls, Va., junior.

Porte said he felt the violation deserved expulsion from the election or a severe fine.

According to a written testimony submitted by the two members of the elections commission, Davis, Clay Center junior, approached them after a hearing in which United Students received a $350 fine for failing to include the elections commission Web site on its campaign posters.

The commissioners, Caitlin Taylor and Courtney Bone, live in the same sorority house as Davis. They said in their testimonies that they received angry text messages from Davis after the elections commission ruled in favor of fining United Students. They said they had divulged information to Davis about the deliberations, which were supposed to be kept confidential.

“I do understand that divulging the initial information to Ms. Davis was wrong, but I do think that speaking to her one-on-one is an intimidating situation that I was unprepared for,” Taylor said in her statement.

Both Taylor and Bone said Davis had approached them on several occasions to speak with them about matters pertaining to the elections commission and to discuss the validity of the decision to fine United Students.

In his complaint, Porte said this amounted to an attempt by Davis to “intimidate and harass” the commissioners into providing her with information. He said this would put her in violation of the elections code, which said an attempt to “influence the outcome of an election by means of harassment, intimidation, bribery or fraud” was punishable by fines or even expulsion from the election.

However, when informed of the allegations, Davis said she was unaware that she, or any member of United Students, had violated the elections code.

“I have absolutely no idea what they can be referring to that I could have pressured somebody into doing,” Davis said. “I don’t see why that’s a violation of code for an elections commissioner to say something about deliberations, but obviously anything that an elections commissioner would say would be their own violation of the code, not mine.”

Alex Herman, elections commission chair and Hays second-year law student, said the hearing would likely take place Tuesday evening.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s going to be that late, but at least it will happen,” Porte said.

The Student Senate elections will be held this Wednesday and Thursday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

— — Edited by Jesse Trimble

• Share
  • Share this item

    Send this to a friend

  • Grab the link

    Copy and paste the link:

  • Blog about it

    Blog about this page.

  • Close
• Comment
• Facebook
• Digg
• Delicious
• Print