Trinity junior Milan Selassie was removed from the ballot for Duke Student Government president Monday night after the DSG elections commission found him guilty of violating campaigning bylaws.
Selassie was scheduled to face Trinity junior Peggy Cross in a runoff election Thursday after the two received the highest vote totals in the original election held last week. But the commission decided to ban Selassie from the ticket and reinstate the other three candidates that were in the original election, Trinity juniors Christian Grose, Peter Rahbar and Brian Thompson. Selassie has appealed the case to the DSG Judiciary, which will hold a hearing tonight and could reverse the decision.
The commission also ruled on a complaint against Trinity sophomore Daleep Singh, a runoff candidate for DSG executive vice president, and Trinity freshman Kashif (Kaz) Latif, a former candidate for vice president for community interaction. The commission found the two students guilty of using publications board computers to produce flyers, a violation of DSG bylaws.
Singh has also filed a complaint with the DSG judiciary against the elections commission and his opponent, Trinity sophomore Randy Fink. The judiciary is scheduled to hear the case today.
The commission's written decisions on the two cases it heard Monday night were released at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Thompson and Grose filed a complaint with the commission on Sunday claiming that Selassie violated election bylaws by being too close to the Burger King voting station.
Thompson and Grose submitted signed statements from four students who asserted that they saw Selassie in the Burger King eating area at various times the afternoon of the election. A fifth student wrote that he saw Selassie at and near the East Campus Union polling station that morning.
Selassie said at the hearing Monday night that he was never within 20 feet of the polling site except when he went to vote, and that he was seated at a booth that was about 25 feet away from the polls for the duration of his stay at the Burger King. Seven witnesses corroborated Selassie's statement and also testified that he did not talk with groups of greater than four people, nor did he talk about the election except in very brief, casual conversation to passersby. Both talking to groups of more than four people and discussing the election in any context are considered "campaigning," by bylaw.
"Selassie has violated both the letter and spirit of the elections bylaw," the commission wrote in their decision, citing the testimony provided by Thompson and Grose. In addition to being within a 20-foot radius of both the Burger King and Cambridge Inn polling stations, "Selassie was within the 150-foot campaign exclusion zone consistently throughout the dayÉ at the Burger King.
"A sign with nothing but Milan Selassie's name on it within the 150-foot range of the polling station is a campaign violationÉ Milan's continuous presenceÉ is a visible demonstration of his candidacy."
After hearing the commission's ruling, Selassie said, "The whole process was a jokeÉ I'm furious because it's obviously a malicious attempt against our campaign."
The complaint against Singh and Latif was filed by Trinity seniors Katherine Lambert, chair of the Student Organizations Finance Committee, and Larry Reich, SOFC advisor to the Publications Board. They claimed that by using the Pub Board's equipment to create campaign flyers, the two candidates violated a bylaw stating that no organization may use its funds to promote any candidate.
Latif said that he was never made aware by Pub Board officials that he was not allowed to use the equipment and was helped in creating the flyers by Trinity junior Vikram Chiruvolu, who had been allowed to use the equipment to work on a cultural group's newsletter in the past.
Ruling that the bylaw on student organization funds had indeed been violated, the commission moved to disqualify all votes cast for Latif in the original election and to deny Singh of all DSG funding for his upcoming runoff campaign. Latif received 9.1 percent of the vote in last week's election.
After the hearing, Latif said, "I think the way this was handled by the elections commission was nothing less than a travesty. I think the elections commission needs to reconsider every decision it has made so far and get off its power trip."
Singh chose not to represent himself at his hearing because of the complaint he filed against the elections commission and Fink. In the complaint, Singh disputes the presence of Trinity sophomore Peter Tolsma on the commission because Tolsma and Fink are roommates and because "Tolsma is verifiably a member of Fink's campaign staff."
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