Commission rules against complaint

The Duke Student Government Election Commission ruled against a complaint filed by three candidates in the Class of 2003 elections Wednesday night.

The complaint centered around an e-mail sent late Monday night by four other candidates. Filed Tuesday night by secretary candidate Sunil Devarakonda, treasurer candidate Steve Cheng and vice-president candidate Drew Skelton, the complaint listed three problems.

Jonathan Grieb, one of the candidates who sent the e-mail in contention, said he was not surprised by the results. "We expected them to rule in our favor, because we didn't see any violations in the DSG bylaws," said Grieb, who will compete in a runoff today in the vice-presidential race. "It was too bad someone had to take the time to write all that out."

First, the candidates argued that the e-mail violated an Office of Information Technology rule banning e-mails to over 100 students without permission.

The commission decided that because no DSG bylaws reference the policy, they could not consider it a campaign infraction.

Nevertheless, the commission said it would notify OIT of the breach in the mass e-mail policy. It also proposed an amendment to the DSG Legislature mandating that all DSG and class office candidates must "behave in accordance with University policies." The amendment was approved at Wednesday night's DSG meeting.

Omid Nasab, who will be in the treasurer race runoff today, said he thought it was good that the commission moved to clarify the issue. The complaint also charged that the e-mail violated a DSG election bylaw clause prohibiting "harassment," because the e-mail disturbed students who received it.

The commission ruled, however, that the e-mail--though it may have been "annoying"--did not meet the definition of harassment, which they said included continued or persistent action.