 "Photo: Kelly Bobrow")
About 30 people filed into the Student Government offices Thursday night for two Elections Commission hearings contesting the validity of the election.
Presidential candidate Chase Stoudenmire, a third-year history student, and Vice Presidential candidate Allen Klump, a third-year political science student, brought forward allegations and witnesses.
Student Body President Tommy Preston said he was surprised when he saw all the people waiting.
"I have never seen anything like this before," Preston said.
Klump said in his arguments that students have the right to choose to vote or not vote.
"I believe those rights were infringed upon in the Greek Village," Klump said.
Klump said there was coercion within the Greek Village that influenced the election.
"There was a culture created in the Greek Village to really support candidates for office," Klump said. "Some of that was done legally, some was done illegally."
Klump presented phone calls that were made by pledges of an unnamed fraternity, e-mails sent to members with a list of all the Greek candidates running for office and the set-up of polling places in chapters.
"I believe that all these actions, but most importantly the actions that occurred during the actual chapter meetings, directly influenced the election," Klump said.
The first witness said they saw Sigma Phi Epsilon members carrying computers.
"I was waiting for my chapter meeting to start in the BA Monday night, and one of the fraternities, whose classroom who is next to us, came down the stairs with four to seven computers," the witness said.
The witness asked the president of the fraternity what he was doing, and he said they were making voting stations. After he was told it was a violation, the witness said he said, "Well just go ahead and tell on me."
In Klump's original complaint, he said the president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon set up five laptops at the beginning of the chapter meeting. Klump later amended his complaint to read, "Sigma Phi Epsilon."
Vice President-elect Jay Laura is the president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, but was not named in the complaint.
The second witness said they saw the same thing.
"There were people using the computers to vote," they said. "There were older guys in the fraternity who were standing there talking to them while they were voting. I felt like there was a lot of pressure towards to vote."
Another witness said they saw a polling center in her sorority house.
"There were signs put up outside the house saying 'vote in the TV room,'" the witness said.
The witness said they entered the TV room and saw a computer set-up with President-elect Nick Payne posters and a Laura poster.
Another witness, a member of Chi Omega, said their suitemate said, "I got a call, I have to go set up a voting booth in the TV room for Nick Payne."
One sorority member said she saw candidates help set up the computers.
"I came in while Jay Laura and Nick Payne were personally helping set up the voting section in the house with their campaign posters up by the computers," she said.
The polling place was never supervised, but some people expressed concerns because of campaign material posted on the desktop of the computer, she said.
"I did not see it personally because I voted on my own computer," she said.
Several witnesses said Kate Lawson, a member of Alpha Chi Omega, set up the computers.
Elections commissioner Kayleigh Entsminger reminded the commission that they were trying the elections process.
"It's not Allen versus Jay; it's Allen versus the election," Entsminger said. "We're not trying to find Jay guilty of anything."
Laura said he was severely disheartened by the allegations.
"Throughout my campaign I spoke about being concerned with progress as opposed to process and this is the very type thing I was referring to," Laura said.
Laura said he felt the voting stations were good campaigning that didn't take away the autonomy of those voting.
"It was something in our strategy from the beginning," Laura said.
Laura said he met Payne and Alesha Brown in the Greek Village before setting up the computers.
Laura said he took some of treasurer candidate Brown's campaign material to put up.
In his closing remarks, Klump said he believed psychological intimidation had taken place.
"I would ask that the commission consider the ramifications most importantly of supporting actions like this and what that would do to the elections," Klump said.
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