Engage with IUSA filed a petition for writ of certiorari, or request for judicial review, in IU Student Association Supreme Court on Sunday after a five-ticket election resulted in the Empower IU ticket taking first place in preliminary vote rankings.
The petition, filed Sunday, is an appeal to the Election Commission’s dismissal of Engage’s five complaints, which asked the court to review this decision and order the commission to accept the complaints. They were initially denied in a 5-4 decision because they were submitted as Word documents instead of PDFs.
Engage’s case relies on the fact that the procedural election code, which IUSA bylaws state must be posted before the first day of the spring semester, was not published until March. The revised code was not approved by congress until Feb. 21. The Engage ticket also argues that because the PDF requirement isn’t contained within the election code, this should make its complaints’ dismissal void.
The release of the petition comes in the wake of rumors that final vote tallies were leaked to multiple tickets, though it is unclear where the allegations originated. This election season the commission announced it would calculate vote percent deductions and other campaign violations before looking at actual vote counts. The commission has said they are keeping to this rule.
The only public documentation of the alleged leaks is a screenshot of a Facebook Messenger conversation between junior Samuel Patterson, of the disbanded Refund Supreme ticket,and a person on Empower IU’s campaign, which was presented as evidence in reply to a complaint filed by Patterson. The initial complaint was rejected for deficiency, but Empower’s presidential candidate Dan Niersbach, a junior, said his ticket replied to every complaint made against it at the suggestion of the commission.
“We allege that Empower IUSA has violated election code section 307,” Patterson wrote in his complaint. “They have accessed the voter totals and leaked it, intentionally unblinding the election commission.”
He went on to accuse the Engage ticket of a similar offense and alleged the ticket used privileged relationships with IUSA President Sara Zaheer, a senior, and the commission’s graduate advisor to acquire the vote totals. This claim was disputed by all parties involved with the exception of Patterson, who claimed in the Facebook Messenger conversation with Empower that he heard the ticket only won by 200 votes. He proceeded to imply he learned this information from the election commissioner, junior Eric Langowski.
He also wrote that the vote totals were leaked to the Focus for IUSA ticket by Student Life & Learning.
“There’s no way for anyone in IUSA to know vote totals until they’re released to the public,” Zaheer said in a statement to the Indiana Daily Student. “Only SLL knows those results so I don’t know why someone would distract from the complaint process by tossing that accusation in. I think we should be patient and let the process run its course just like every year.”
Focus denies having any communication with the SLL office, and SLL confirmed that after conducting an investigation it could not detect any access to vote tallies by unauthorized parties. The Election Commission as a whole maintains that the only information it was sent was a preliminary ranking of tickets, which was published the night of the election.
When asked through text message about allegations he made in both the complaint and screenshots of the messages, Patterson said new arguments could not be presented in reply briefs.
“I cannot comment on current criminal investigations,” he added.
Conversely, the Election Commission said it has no idea where Patterson’s claims are coming from. The origin and purpose of these rumors remains unclear. Engage’s candidate for vice president of administration, junior Jaeson Chang, said in an email that his ticket was not notified of voter results. He said his ticket filed the appeal with the Supreme Court at the urging of some commission members, and Engage hopes its complaints will be approved for consideration.
The Supreme Court will announce its decision on whether to grant or deny Engage’s petition by 5:30 p.m. March 30, according to the public notice of appeals posted on the IUSA Election Commission website.
A previous version of this article stated Eric Langowski was a senior. This article has been updated to reflect that he is junior. The IDS regrets this error.
