Election outcome to be decided today

There is still no word on the outcome of last week's IU Student Association elections, but after hours of deliberation and confrontation Monday and Tuesday nights, the elections commission is set to announce its decision sometime today.\nThe tickets have until 5 p.m. to file an appeal to the commission's decision, which would be heard by the IUSA Supreme Court. If no appeals are filed, the winner of the election will be announced. If appeals are filed, however, the wait will extend until after the Supreme Court's verdict, anticipated to be before spring break.\nMonday's hearing began with a preliminary judgment against the Synergy ticket for turning in its financial statement past deadline. Joe Walterman, IUSA elections commissioner, ordered Synergy to pay $127.75 in the next 24 hours.\nThe first issue tackled was the Kirkwood complaint that an unidentified Synergy candidate "illegally obtained a master key to Briscoe residence hall and furthermore, proceeded to use the master key to gain access to each floor, unescorted…"\nFreshman John Barefoot, resident of Briscoe Quad, also testified, claiming that while visiting a friend on the 11th floor, he saw members of the Synergy ticket campaigning on the floor unescorted. Barefoot also said the Synergy members had a master key to Briscoe Quad. RPS policy allows master keys to be checked out but only if the visitor is accompanied by a staff member before midnight.\nThe next complaint concerned an alleged breaking and entering into Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity by members of the Synergy ticket. Kirkwood alleged Synergy ticket members entered the Lambda Chi house without permission from the president and remained in a room while members of the house voted.\nKirkwood's complaint states that Synergy "broke this (section 602 of the elections code), the most essential rule, to the free election process and should be disqualified for their decision to intimidate voters."\nJunior Paul Musgrave, a Synergy campaign manager, asserted Synergy members were invited inside and were accompanied by friends the entire time. \nMusgrave also admitted, however, the possibility of coercion taking place.\nRory Starks, sophomore and Forrest Quad resident, filed an unofficial complaint against the Steel ticket. Starks alleged Steel ticket members campaigned unescorted on his academic floor, five hours after quiet hours had begun. He claimed Steel members woke him up, did not explain their platform and tried to stay and speak with him after he told them he wished to go to bed.\n"The main reason we filed is because Synergy is being accused of the same thing Steel did," he said.\nSteel responded claiming they were escorted the entire time, and they apologized for waking Starks.\nThe next complaint on the agenda came from Kirkwood, alleging that Synergy candidates had sexually harassed students and committed voter fraud by handing out condoms attached to campaign literature. Kirkwood cited Section 602 of the Election Code, saying that a condom without campaign information printed on it was a good exchanged for a vote. \nMusgrave contended that the Synergy candidates were utilizing a normal campaigning tactic and said students who received the condoms did not have to commit to a vote in favor of Synergy.\n"By accepting the condom, a student is not entering into a binding contract," he said.\nThe Kirkwood ticket next claimed Synergy had "knowingly and grossly" destroyed, damaged and defaced University property by handing out leaflets and fliers implying that the University's aesthetic beauty was put at stake.\n"IU's campus has been tarnished," said sophomore Bill Gray, Kirkwood candidate for president of the student body. \nSynergy responded by saying its actions would not have caused fliers to be strewn on the ground and held that it didn't feel the fliers had been inappropriately disposed of to the degree that the opposition claimed.\n"We did not do this Captain Planet style and dump these into the river," Musgrave said.\nSynergy claimed no students complained about the fliers littering campus -- a point Arnold said was irrelevant.\n"Nine out of every 10 rape victims don't file a lawsuit," Arnold said.\nThe next accusation against Kirk-wood alleged the ticket coerced voters in the greek system to support Kirkwood. The letter states, "We will be able to see the effectiveness of this campaign, who you got to vote, by a VOTETRACKER SYSTEM, which allows us to see who is voting where. Your houses will be told exactly how well you performed."\nWalterman specifically told the Kirkwood candidates that they could not tell how each house voted and said they therefore printed false information. \n"Greek houses are very competitive. They want to know results," Gray said.\nSophomore Blair Greenberg, Kirkwood candidate for treasurer, maintained that the ticket did nothing wrong.\n"I don't think it was a big secret," Greenberg said. "We had a lot of support from the Greek system. Votetracker is completely public knowledge -- nothing sinister."\nTension rose as the hearing approached the final concern of the evening -- the complaints filed separately by Steel and Synergy against Kirkwood for allegedly violating UITS guidelines and Election Codes 601 and 603 by utilizing a student e-mail account to send numerous unsolicited e-mails.\nKirkwood said it felt it had done nothing wrong.\n"There is no way that Kirkwood harassed anyone," Greenberg said. "Everybody did it, and that shows the guidelines were unclear. "We felt like we were in direct compliance with the rules."\nSynergy contested that it used an e-mail program to merge its addresses so that each e-mail was sent individually, to avoid mass replies.\nSteel claimed it merely sent e-mails to friends and family. Wuslich said the e-mails Steel sent were only to people someone on its ticket had spoken to or personally knew.\nUITS guidelines specifically state, "Never send uninvited e-mail (spam) to large numbers of strangers…If you do legitimately need to send e-mail to a large number of people, you should place all but one of the addresses on the Blind carbon copy ('Bcc:') line of the message"