The Undergraduate Student Government campaign of Austin Dunn and Morgan Monahan has received two strikes resulting from complaints filed by the other two tickets, according to transcripts from an elections hearing released Tuesday.
The verdict from the hearing, which took place Sunday, stated that the Elections Commission has unanimously decided for the campaign to lose its access to digital campaigning, which includes but is not limited to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram posts by the candidates and their team on their personal accounts. The sanctions became effective Monday at 12:01 a.m. and will remain in effect until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.
Dunn, a junior majoring in political science, and Monahan, announced their candidacy for president and vice president, respectively, on Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. However, the other two tickets — consisting of Rachel Udabe and running mat Rebecca Harbeck and current USG Senator Daniel Million and running mate Timothy Vorhoff — alleged in complaints filed with the USG Elections Commission on Jan. 27 that Dunn and Monahan had begun their campaigning the day before, on Jan. 25 at 11:15 a.m.
At the hearing, Udabe and Harbeck asked the four deciding commissioners to disqualify Monahan and Dunn on the basis that they had broken election codes by starting to campaign before the official campaign period, which put the other two tickets at a disadvantage.
Monahan and Dunn agreed that they had set up the Facebook group on Jan. 25, but stated that initially, they only invited a core group of people who were involved with their campaign to take part in it. However, these people then invited others, which led to the group having over 300 members by Jan. 26, according to the transcript from the hearing.
“This was in no way meant to be a malicious act against the other two tickets,” Monahan said, according to the hearing transcripts. “It was honestly just because we were excited. We’ve been planning this since October.”
The three campaign tickets could not be reached for comment at press time.
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