GSB exec candidates are allowed to run

Wendy Weiskircher

The Government of the Student Body Election Commission’s disqualification of two executive candidates from the general election was overturned by the GSB Supreme Court Tuesday night.After an hour-long deliberation, the court ruled that omitting a phone number or address on a candidate’s election petition should not invalidate a student’s right to sign a petition, said Chief Justice Bryan Siepker, senior in political science. The ruling put Bing Howell, junior in management information systems, and Zach Eakman, sophomore in psychology, on the executive ticket for the March 6-7 GSB general election.After 118 of their 2,072 petition signatures were called into question by the election commission, Howell, the presidential candidate, and his running mate, Eakman, filed an appeal for review with the court Monday night.To be placed on the GSB executive ballot, each slate must have at least 2,000 signatures of registered ISU students, according to the GSB Election Code. To validate the signature, the student must include his or her printed name, address and phone number.At least 16 of the Howell/Eakman petition signatures on two sheets did not include some of the information, said GSB Election Commissioner Chris Wisher. According to the code, if a sheet has five incomplete signatures, the entire 50-name sheet may be thrown out by the election commission. Therefore, all 100 signatures on the sheets — plus 18 other blank entries — were disqualified by the commission.Howell said the students are under no obligation to register their phone number with the university. The code, he said, does not allow students without a registered phone number to voice their opinions.”They are saying those voices can’t be heard,” Howell said.Eakman said many students chose not to list their phone numbers on the petitions to avoid solicitation. Those people still have a right to have their voice heard, he said, without violating their rights to privacy.Wisher said the commission followed the “letter of the law” in its verification process. After the signatures are counted, the commission looks for missing information.”In the case of Mr. Howell, that was the last step, because it took him below 2,000 signatures,” Wisher said.Alex Rodeck, agriculture senator, filed his own claim against the election commission, maintaining that the same laws should be applied to every candidate.Before a potential candidate may collect petition signatures, he or she must attend an informational meeting, according to the election code. Howell initially attended a meeting as a candidate for the business-college senator, and later changed his mind and decided to run for president, Wisher said. He was granted an exception based on a stipulation in the election code that states the commissioner may meet personally with a candidate who absolutely cannot attend the meetings.Rodeck, who missed the mandatory meetings and now is running as a write-in candidate for agriculture, said it is not fair to allow exceptions for one slate.”The rules are set — there are deadlines and there’s a reason,” he said. “I think the rules should apply to everyone equally. Once you start making concessions, it just goes downhill.”Since Howell did not know he was running for president, he could not have attended the mandatory meeting as a presidential prospect, Wisher said. The court ruled to let Wisher’s discretion stand.