An endorsement by the university organization Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) for the Tillo-Barnes campaign called to question some concerns about university policy and election code by the West-Smith campaign ahead of the election.

Barnes, who is heavily involved in WiSE, said she received permission for the endorsement from Noah Collins, the elections commissioner, the Friday after campaigning began.

“Originally I got an endorsement form from the Tillo-Barnes campaign from the WiSE organization… I didn’t think anything really of it,” Collins said.

The next day, however, Barnes said the Election Commission reversed the decision after receiving some feedback and having a discussion.

According to the Election Code, all endorsements are required to be filed with the Election Commission before claiming the endorsement. The Election Code, however, only lists specifics for student organizations. WiSE is not a student organization but rather a university program.

“Jacob [Zirkelbach] contacted me and David Moore contacted about it sharing their concerns,” Collins said. “[They said] that it’s not ethical for a university organization to support a candidate directly… At that point I agreed with that statement that it seemed unethical.

“[I was] feeling a lot of pressure from them.”

Zirkelbach and Moore are the campaign manager and campaign adviser for Cody 4 ISU, respectively.

Barnes said she then met with the Election Commission the following Tuesday and went through Election Code and university policy.

“The agreement we came to was that WiSE would not send it in a newsletter,” Barnes said.

Barnes said she was then asked to meet with the other campaign on Sunday, Feb. 19, which she said felt strange to her.

“How the email was framed from the Election Commission was that it was like a conversation about the WiSE endorsement for the other campaign to understand [it],” Barnes said. “I didn’t prepare anything, went in thinking open-ended conversation.”

Collins backed Barnes’ thoughts on how the meeting was framed.

“I thought if we got Rachael and Conner [Tillo] and their campaign manager with Jacob and David, they could just talk it out in person and come to an agreement,” Collins said.

According to minutes from the meeting, Zirkelbach presented social media posts by WiSE he said their campaign believed are violations of university policy.

In response, Barnes said she does not feel as if their campaign has done anything against policy because they have an endorsement form that was filled out by the director of WiSE, according to meeting minutes.

Barnes said, however, that the Election Commission chimed in that “it was a gray area” and that they don’t believe WiSE violated any rules.

Zirkelbach said during the meeting that he didn’t want any fines to have to be imposed on the Tillo-Barnes campaign, but rather that Election Code is enforced.

Meeting minutes state that presidential candidate Conner Tillo, Barnes, Tillo-Barnes campaign manager Weston Elias, Zirkelbach and Moore were all in attendance.

Barnes said she was drilled with questions during the meeting.

“The original intent of the meeting was to have a dialogue, kind of turned into a trial, not what I wanted,” Collins said. “In the end, nothing was resolved.”

Barnes said that she felt the meeting was targeted at her.

“They said I would make a terrible vice president because of my decision to do this,” Barnes said.

Collins said that Zirkelbach and Moore did not tell Barnes she would be a bad vice president. He said, however, that a few times during the meeting they said they thought it was a bad reflection on the election process.

“It’s not your fault you got an endorsement form,” Moore said during the meeting to the Tillo-Barnes campaign. “That’s completely the way you should have done it. I do not fault you at all for getting the endorsement from WiSE.

“The people I do fault unfortunately is [the election commission.]”

Moore said the endorsement should have never happened in the first place and that’s on the commission, not the Tillo-Barnes campaign.

Barnes said after the meeting and after the vice presidential debate she approached West over what occurred.

Barnes said the campaign then reached out and apologized for their comments.

West said that he had later talked to his campaign about the comments, and Zirkelbach and Moore said they did not tell Barnes she would make a terrible vice president.

The meeting for Barnes left a different feeling afterwards, however.

“For one thing, they just made it seem like they were targeting a women’s organization – they were targeting one of the main reasons I was qualified for this position and they were trying to undermine that as much as they could,” Barnes said.

It was resolved after several additional meetings that WiSE could endorse the Tillo-Barnes campaign, but as aforementioned, could not endorse them in their newsletter and had to be less specific when endorsing Tillo-Barnes on social media. 

This story has been updated with quotes from Zirkelbach and Moore during the meeting.