Misinformation regarding city council elections may have led to a spike in absentee ballots.

Recent speculation in the city council election is getting voters’ attention. It is being speculated that a third party is portraying information in a wrongful manner to voters, especially to individuals in greek housing.

Matthew Goodman, representative at large on city council, said the 4-1 precinct usually has hardly any voter participation.

“The 4-1 precincts historically have hardly any absentee ballots and any voting at all,” Goodman said, “Already, after this misinformation campaign that we found out about last week, they have received nearly 100 absentee ballots out of that precinct.”

Thus far, 95 absentee ballots have been requested in precinct 4-1. The total number of absentee ballots for the entire city is 286, making one-third of the total absentee ballots for the election from precinct 4-1.

Fern Kupfer, ISU lecturer of English, said the misinformation is in favor of candidates with relations to builders and developers.

“The reason that they did it was to scare them so they would not vote for Anne Kinzel, Victoria Szopinski and Gloria Betcher, who is president of the Historic Preservation Society in Ames,” Kupfer said.

Kupfer said Kinzel, Szopinski and Betcher are not associated with the builders in Ames.

“The students were told that the rental code also applies to fraternity and sorority houses but hasn’t been enforced,” Kupfer said. “[The unknown third party] scared them by saying if you vote for these other people, they will tear down the sorority and fraternity houses because they will enforce the rental code.”

Kupfer said this is untrue because Ames needs housing for both greek and nongreek students.

Jennifer Kapaun, office manager at Hunziker, said Hunziker was not a part of the misinformation campaign.

The city council and small elections are meant to be nonpartisan, neither Democrat nor Republican. However, in Ames city council elections, builders, developers and those with an interest in development are against the normal citizen or those who are against developers. 

The scare tactic has spiked an increase in the number of absentee ballots.

Goodman said the scare tactic targeted Sigma Kappa in particular. Sigma Kappa President Chrissy Jones did not wish to comment on the allegation, but an email stated she has had more girls register to vote than in previous years and is not persuading the girls to vote for a particular candidate.

Josh Hill, FarmHouse fraternity president, said students in the greek community were under the impression, due to the misinformation, that if Kinzel and Szopinski were elected, they would potentially lose their houses.

Victoria Szopinski, fourth ward candidate, learned about the misrepresentation of her campaign after receiving a phone call from a mother whose daughter was in Sigma Kappa.

“When I heard from a parent whose daughter had come home from a meeting at the sorority and that she had been told to vote for a particular person and not for me because of my misrepresented position,” Szopinski said, “I … would appreciate an opportunity to be in front of all of those students to present the facts.”

Szopinski contacted Greek Affairs and wrote an email to the greek community clarifying her position on the rental housing code.

Hill said his support is for Chris Nelson, fourth ward candidate, because he would be a great liaison between greek housing and the council.

Hill said at a recent chapter meeting that Nelson told members Amber Corrieri was also an alumna of a sorority, making her another liaison to support.

Justin Dodge, ward one candidate and assistant adviser to Delta Tau Delta, believes the increase in absentee ballots is due to a growing interest of Section 13 in the Ames Rental Housing Code.

 “I would attribute that to the Section 13 of the Ames Rental Housing Code and its effect on greek housing,” Dodge said. “Students in general are not very participatory on the local government level, but when you have an issue like that that directly affects them, I think it got them engaged in the process.”

Goodman and Kupfer are not discouraging young adults to vote, but they find the number and location of absentee ballots suspicious.

Dodge said many of the candidates have shared their point of view with the Office of Greek Affairs and all the candidates have the same opinion.

“To eliminate it to just those two [Nelson and Corrieri] just isn’t fair…Victoria, Amber, Chris, myself, Peter share the same perspective,” Dodge said.

Nelson said the biggest concern is about how this issue was raised.

“Our campaign has not been negative in any other venue … I approached the greek system as a way to engage the student body,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he went to three individual chapter meetings, following a script stating his position and reasoning to vote for him for city council.

“I have a script that I use when I do it that has no bad information about Victoria and the fact the she would shut the greek system down if she were elected,” Nelson said, “It is totally and utterly untrue coming from me or anyone associated with my campaign.”

Nelson said he went as far as returning to Sigma Kappa and clarifying Szopinski would not tear down the greek system if elected.

“I think we need to make a better effort to come to campus and reach out to students … looking for new ways to make sure we are doing more things together,” Szopinski said.

The city council election will take place on Nov. 5.