Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.
The ASUO Constitution Court upheld the Elections Board’s decision to disqualify Ben Bowman as a presidential candidate in the 2014-2015 elections in a decision made just before 10 p.m. on Sunday March 30. This comes after presidential candidate Thomas Tullis filed a grievance against Bowman and members of the Mighty Oregon campaign for intimidation, harassment and bribery. On March 20, the ASUO Elections Board ruled to disqualify Bowman from the ASUO elections ballot.
“The Election Board’s decision unquestioningly ratifies an outrageous attempt by Thomas Tullis to disqualify a competitor for the ASUO Presidency,” Bowman said in his appeal of the Elections Board’s decision.
In the appeal of Thomas Tullis v. Ben Bowman, the ASUO Constitution Court stated that Bowman violated elections rules 1.1, 1.2, 3.4, 6.4, 7.13.1 and 9.8. However, the court did note that it did not consider the issue of the Mighty Oregon campaign offering Tullis an appointment to be a form of bribery, as was alleged in Tullis’ grievance.
The court found that the actions of freshman representative Emily Wu did not warrant her removal from the ballot. Instead Wu and Mighty Oregon are suspended from advertising her candidacy for 72 hours.
“I’m incredibly disappointed in the decision, I haven’t broken any rules at all and any impartial analysis of the situation would confirm that,” Bowman said. “It’s sad that overzealous College Republicans — one former Vice President and the sitting President — are in positions where it’s their job to be neutral. They obviously couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a swipe at their opponents. I’m glad that the other target of the Elections Board, Emily Wu, has been placed back on the ballot.”
Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen maintains that the ruling had nothing to do with the politics of College Republicans or College Democrats. Ehlen, who is a former vice-chair of College Republicans, has not been associated with the group since last spring and Ben Bowman currently serves as the president of College Democrats. Ehlen stresses that the decision of the Elections Board had nothing to do with political parties.
“In my personal opinion I think there are some people who definitely got away with a lot that didn’t receive anything, people who were directly involved with this who were campaign workers who cannot be sanctioned by the Board,” Ehlen said. “I think it’s good that they upheld the majority of our decision.”