With election season nearing an end as students prepare to enter the polls and choose their new TSG leadership, several violations have been filed against the tickets.
However, unlike last year, the violations were minor and far fewer than last year, TSG Supreme Court Chief Justice Keith Davis said.
Simultaneous with the counter protest against the no-show Westboro Baptist Church that garnered the support of nearly 1,100, the presidents of each ticket were called in to meet with the Elections Commission and chief justices in reference to alleged violations against each ticket.
In total, there were eight alleged violations filed against campaigns, six of which were against TU 360 and the other two against Owls United, leaving BreakThru TU unscathed.
After each president was informed of the violations filed against their campaign, they were given a few minutes to refute the allegations.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the justices found TU 360 guilty of two violations: failing to cite a Temple-managed Web site on their campaign’s site and campaigning before the official start at 8 a.m. March 20, the latter of which was discovered via Facebook.
The justices found Owls United guilty of one violation, filed by Senator for the College of Education Monica Rindfleisch. The violation was a student activity and residence hall policy which requires all fliers in residence halls to be stamped, which Owls United failed to do in Johnson and Hardwick residence halls.
The Supreme Court was represented by three justices and, after deciding which violations upheld, made a recommendation that a fee of $30 for each violation be paid by the tickets. Due to the absence of a fourth justice, the court could not require the commission to implement this fee.
Elections Commissioner LaCole Foots said since the hearing, the commission agreed that not all the violations will be assessed the monetary fees. However, Foots declined to comment on which of the three would require payment.
Foots said the money that the commission will collect will go directly to the elections funds for next year and into TSG funds.
“That [violation fees] in no way is an incentive for the commission to look for violations,” Foots said.
Despite the three small violations, Davis said, “The elections appear to be going very well without acquiring a lot of violations like they did last year.”
Angelo Fichera can be reached at afichera@temple.edu.
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