Violations still occurring in USG presidential campaign

By MEGAN DONLEY
Collegian Staff Writer

Although the Elections Commission said campaigning for the Undergraduate Student Government presidency is running smoothly, violations are still taking place and the candidates are concerned.

Steve Castor, head elections commissioner, said the violations have all been minor and fairly routine, including too many fliers on one bulletin board and fliers placed on personal bulletin boards.

"With campaign forces of 100 to 150 people and thousands of fliers, violations are to be expected," Castor said, adding that they have been committed equally by both tickets.

Although both presidential candidates think the commission is doing a good job, a major worry has been fliers disappearing from bulletin boards.

"There's definitely a concern," said Josh Bokee, USG presidential candidate. Bokee added that the fliers are not something he wanted to debate during the campaign.

"I'd like to keep it as clean as possible," Bokee said of the campaign.

The other presidential candidate, Corey O'Brien, said he feels the same way.

"It's really unfortunate that there's no respect," O'Brien said. "We will not engage in those activities. We'll stick to the issues and run a very clean campaign."

Ben Ehrhart, candidacy and campaigning commissioner, said he thinks the campaigning is going well.

"There've been some rough spots, but there always is," Ehrhart said.

But Chris Saunders, who was USG president from 1993-94, said he has never seen anything like what is going on with this year's campaign. Saunders is in charge of public relations and publicity for the O'Brien/Annechini ticket and estimates that their campaign had lost 70 to 75 percent of their fliers before they issued new ones.

"This year's flier removal is unprecedented. It's not random. It's being done efficiently and systematically," Saunders said. The campaign has no proof of who is removing the fliers, but it is hurting their efforts, he said.

Corey Gesford, who is in charge of publicity for the Bokee/Strano ticket, said he does not know how big of a problem the flier removal has been.

"We've had some concerns with the fliers, but O'Brien's had the same complaint. It could be exaggerated or workers could be doing it," Gesford said.

Castor said there have been equal complaints from both tickets that fliers are down -- however, he had no proof that either of the candidates are responsible. He said he has encouraged both tickets to look out for their fliers when they are in areas with bulletin boards.