The race for student body president finally got interesting Monday night.
Kenny Tracy was penalized 4.5 percentage points following two and a half hours of deliberation by Student Government’s elections commission. The maximum a candidate can be docked before being disqualified is five points.
According to a copy of the original allegation, Rohail Kazi, Tracy’s campaign manager, approached two students, including one Freshman Council member, on the night of Jan. 11 to offer them spots in his cabinet in return for their support in the election.
That, the commission decided, violates elections rules that prohibit early campaigning.
The group also cited the incident’s offer to trade power for support in its official verdict.
“The elections commission also finds the nature of the solicitation to be in violation of the Carolinian Creed’s mandate to maintain personal integrity,” it wrote.
Tracy’s campaign plans to appeal the ruling, though, because it was charged under rules not mentioned in the original report, which alleged Tracy of fraud. That, said CJ Lake, one of Tracy’s advisers, breaks part of the elections code.
Lake cited a rule that states that the commission can only consider violations “filed by someone who is not a member of the elections commission.”
But the elections commission contends that it can make verdicts based on any elections rule, not just the one cited by the witnesses who file complaints.
“Just because it says this number here means nothing,” Mason Smith, the commission’s violations chairman, said after reading Tracy’s advisers the verdict, referring to the number of the code. “We get violations that have that (part of the form) as a blank line. The people who file these violations are not trained in the election code.”
While the first violation puts Tracy’s campaign only a half-point margin from disqualification, a separate allegation saw the candidate “Livin’ on a Prayer” but was eventually dismissed.
That allegation said Lake and other Tracy supporters had violated an elections code during the Carolina After Dark bowling and karaoke outing. After Lake’s team, which was called “Kenny for Carolina,” after the campaign’s slogan, finished singing a reportedly rousing rendition of a Jon Bon Jovi anthem, Lake yelled “Kenny for Carolina, y’all!” into the microphone.
The commission decided the exclamation did not constitute improper campaigning, as Lake said she was merely promoting her bowling team.
The case was dismissed, Smith informed Lake and Kazi, then joked, “despite your terrible choice in song.
“I’m pretty sure Bon Jovi is an elections violation.”
The status of the appeal is not yet clear, and Tracy is still on the ballot as of today.
“I think we can all agree there’s one positive thing that comes out of this,” said Chris Campbell, SG’s chief justice, who will oversee the appeal process, after the commission read its verdict. “I get to wear my robes.”
