Play fair Kirkwood

Mass e-mails sent by the Kirkwood ticket at 12 o'clock last Tuesday morning have caused a controversy among the tickets in the IUSA election. The University Information Technology Services guidelines say the misuse of e-mail for campaigning purposes is a violation and can result in serious consequences. The Synergy and Steel tickets filed complaints last week, though not jointly, which could take the Kirkwood ticket out of the election for use of mass e-mail. All tickets filed complaints against another for things that could ban the tickets from the election, although only two were for misuse of e-mails. Kirkwood has filed four against Synergy, Synergy has filed two against Kirkwood, and Steel has filed one against Kirkwood.\nAlthough the guidelines about sending mass e-mails are vague, it was an unreasonable thing for the Kirkwood ticket to do. Their excuse is that the e-mails they sent were to students of the same major and each major received a different e-mail. However, they were still mass e-mails urging students to vote for Kirkwood. The Synergy and Steel tickets have been sending e-mails to students also, but to people they had personally been in contact with. Even though Kirkwood's actions were not fair, the representatives of the ticket justify their actions by saying everyone has access to students' e-mail addresses. That is true, but the Synergy and Steel tickets obeyed the UITS guidelines. Since they played fair, they want the Kirkwood ticket to play fair, too.\nSo, what should be done? All three tickets campaigned over the e-mail system. Although all e-mails read differently, only Kirkwood sent unsolicited mass e-mails. Bill Gray, the Kirkwood ticket candidate for student body president, was quoted in the Feb. 27 edition of the IDS saying, "The rules don't explicitly say it's legal, but they don't explicitly say it's illegal." The Elections Commissioner, Joe Walterman, was quoted in the same article; "As far as I'm concerned, the mass e-mail list is totally unreasonable."\nAfter thinking about this, I think e-mails reminding students to vote in the election shouldn't be prohibited. It may be hard to believe that some students don't read the paper, don't drive by greek houses with huge banners and posters out front that say to vote for a ticket, or just don't pay attention to their surroundings. But there were some students who didn't know an election was going on. The e-mails they received reminded them to vote. But the e-mails should not urge students to vote for one ticket or another. There is enough campaigning done on campus, including newspaper articles and signs posted. \nIt is also against the UITS guidelines. It's my understanding that, although the guidelines are vague, it was known to others, including the Synergy and Steel tickets, that mass unsolicited e-mails were against the rules. Why didn't Gray pick up on this? He risked the chance that the Kirkwood ticket could be dismissed from the election altogether. After all his hard work campaigning, the ticket could just disappear, and students who voted for the ticket will not get to see Kirkwood's campaign promises happen. And for what? For some e-mails to be sent to random students, grouped by major, urging them to vote for the Kirkwood ticket. It probably didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but now, with what the Kirkwood ticket faces, was it really worth it?\nThe Kirkwood ticket should be punished in some way for its actions, whether it be a fine or a ban from the election. They want to "work hard, play hard," but it would be nice if they would also play fair.