The Government of the Student Body Election Commission found that presidential-hopeful Luke Roling and his running mate, Nate Dobbels, had violated a section of the 2010 Election Code in a violation hearing Monday.

The commission found that an e-mail sent out on behalf of the Roling-Dobbels campaign early Monday morning by Inter Residence Hall Association President Jason Boggess to the approximately 9,000 students living in the residence halls and Schilletter and University Village was in violation of the code.

Since the e-mail was sent at 12:14 a.m. Monday, it violated the election code that prohibits communications through ISU list servers within 24 hours of the vote.

Dan Porter, GSB election commissioner, said he was approached by the Roling–Dobbels campaign for approval to send out an e-mail to the IRHA listserv Thursday night.

“They followed the code on that — I had to approve that e-mail,” Porter said. “At that point, it was still permissible.”

Porter said every group that endorses a candidate is required to sign a form stating that they have read and understand the GSB election code, and that Boggess signed such a form.

If the e-mail had been sent Thursday, Friday or Saturday, Porter said no rules would have been broken.

Porter was forwarded the e-mail Monday morning and met with Dione Somerville, dean of students, later that afternoon to discuss the matter.

“We agreed that this was something we needed to handled sooner, rather than later, because it did have such large implications for the way the election could turn out,” Porter said.

Porter called a meeting of the election commission for 9 p.m., which he said was the earliest time that the group could reach quorum.

Both sets of candidates were brought in, starting with Roling and Dobbels.

“We let them defend themselves before we heard Peterson and Wilson,” said Nick Davis, election commission member and sophomore in political science.

Davis said Roling and Dobbels argued that since they didn’t personally violate the code, the incident was only a minor infraction and a small fine would suffice.

The Peterson and Wilson campaign then presented.

“They made the argument that Jason Boggess, the IRHA president, wasn’t really a third party,” Davis said.

Davis said Boggess’ Facebook profile picture was the Roling–Dobbels campaign logo until he changed it Monday night, and IRHA had no previous history of making GSB endorsements.

However, Peterson and Wilson didn’t push the commission to disqualify the other campaign.

“They both told us that they didn’t want to win by default,” Davis said. “They were more on the side of what we can do to make it equal.”

The election code requires “extreme malicious violations” to nullify an election.

Davis said the commission did not feel the infraction met that standard, and that the commission did not want to taint GSB with questions about the executives’ legitimacy.

Instead, the commission decided to revoke the Roling–Dobbels campaign’s $150 good faith deposit, and election spending reimbursement, up to $750.

In addition, should the Roling–Dobbels campaign win the election, Roling’s stipend would be cut by $700 and Dobbels’ by $350.

Davis said the campaign should have taken responsibility for the endorsement that was being sent out on their behalf.

“It is their responsibility,” Davis said. “They knew this e-mail was going out ahead of time. They should have told Jason that it needed to go out before the 24 hour dead-zone before the election.”

Roling and Dobbels did not discuss the matter with IRHA representatives, Porter said.

“They said that the only rule that they discussed with IRHA president Jason Boggess was whether or not they needed approval to send the e-mail out,” Porter said. “They said that they did not discuss anything outside of that scope.”

In addition, the commission felt the fine needed to be large in order to deter future campaigns from breaking the rules — especially since breaking the rules might win them the election, including a year of tuition and living stipends paid for with student fee money.

“A couple hundred dollars wasn’t enough because given the scope of what they receive in tuition and stipend, it’s not that much,” Davis said.

Boggess declined to comment Tuesday.

Peterson – Wilson

Chandra Peterson, Government of the Student Body presidential candidate, said after seeing Inter-Residence Hall Association President Jason Boggess’ e-mail, she had hoped the election commission could level the playing field.

“We were really looking for an opportunity to make it fair,” Peterson said. “A third of the students received this e-mail. We’re talking 7,000 [or] 8,000 students.”

Because the e-mail was sent in the first 15 minutes of voting, Peterson said she doesn’t feel like her campaign had a chance to reach students.

“I talked to so many people Monday morning who had already voted for the other people,” Peterson said. “They didn’t even have an opportunity to see what we had done — we had sidewalk chalked everywhere, we were out in our booth.”

Peterson said the last election was decided by approximately 200 votes, so if even 5 percent of the students who received the e-mail voted for Luke Roling and Nate Dobbels, her campaign will have a hard time making up the difference.

Peterson said she still has questions about the Roling and Dobbels campaign’s plausible deniability in the affair, because of apparent connections between Boggess and the Roling and Dobbels campaign unrelated to his role in Inter Residence Hall Association’s endorsement.

“It’s not a secret, he’s actually campaigning for them,” Peterson said.

And given the gravity of the endorsement, Peterson said it seems unlikely the Roling and Dobbels campaign would simply part ways with Boggess without following up.

“If I knew somebody was going to be e-mailing 9,000 students for me, telling them to vote for me, I would make sure they did it,” Peterson said.

If the election does not go in favor of Peterson and Wilson, the campaign can contest the decision and appeal to the GSB supreme court — but Peterson said they haven’t discussed whether or not they’ll take that road.

“We’ll have a tough decision to make,” Peterson said.

— Daily Staff

Roling – Dobbels

Government of the Student Body presidential candidate Luke Roling said he knew an e-mail was being sent on behalf of the Inter-Residence Hall Association endorsing his campaign, but he didn’t find out that the e-mail was sent within 24 hours of the election — a violation of GSB election code rules — until 10 a.m. Monday.

About 14 hours later, the Roling and Nate Dobbels campaign found out that the e-mail would cost them up to $900 if they lose — and potentially more, if they win.

Roling said he was in touch with GSB Election Commissioner Dan Porter “throughout the day” and he “kept the election commission quite informed” as he learned of developments.

The e-mail was sent by IRHA President Jason Boggess. The violation occurred not because of the e-mail’s content, but because of the time at which it was sent — around 12:15 a.m. Monday. According to election code, campaign communications through ISU listserv is prohibited within 24 hours of the vote.

Boggess declined to comment for the story.

Roling received approval from Porter for the e-mail to be sent to the IRHA listserv Thursday night. However, that approval was contingent on adherence to the “24-hour rule.”

“We just failed to notify Jason of that,” Roling said, adding that he didn’t want to speculate on whether or not Boggess was aware of the rules when he sent the e-mail.

Roling and Dobbels said they will wait until after the election results are released to discuss whether they will take any further action regarding the decision.

“Luke and I are focusing on the election first and foremost,” Dobbels said.

— Daily Staff Writer

Election code may require further clarification

Because of the situations encountered in Monday’s election commission meeting, the Government of the Student Body may seek to clarify and modify its election code.

Dan Porter, GSB election commissioner and senior in sociology, said one of the changes discussed at the meeting Monday was raising the fine for sending out a campus-wide, mass e-mail.

“If students who are getting full tuition and full room and board for winning this election only get fined $300 for an infraction like that … it seems like a pretty fair trade off,” Porter said.

Porter said that’s not to say the Luke Roling and Nate Dobbels campaign did such a thing, he just wants to avoid giving candidates the option.

“It’s something that we definitely want to look to change in the future.”

GSB may also strengthen the language that states endorsers are responsible for following the GSB election code, just like campaigns.

“In the code itself, that’s somewhat conveyed, and on the sheet that we have the endorser sign it’s more conveyed,” Porter said.

He did, however, voice support for such a change.

“This sort of gray area that we ran into obviously became a problem,” Porter said.

If the GSB Senate does decide to change the election code, it would be a multi-step process.

“We would go through the senate and they would form a committee, probably comprised of the election commissioner and a few experienced senators, and anybody else that they deem fit from GSB,” Porter said.

This ad hoc committee would suggest changes and draft a bill, which would then have to be passed by the Senate.

 —Daily Staff Writer