E-mails spark conflict

The Synergy ticket will file a complaint against the Kirkwood ticket for allegedly sending out mass e-mails to more than 25,000 students early Tuesday morning, possibly jeopardizing Kirkwood's position in the IU Student Association election, which concludes tonight at 11:59 p.m.\nAt 12:00 a.m. Tuesday, as the online voting polls emerged, the ticket began sending unsolicited e-mails to random students urging them to vote for Kirkwood.\nBut representatives for the Kirkwood executive ticket believe they did nothing wrong.\n"UITS e-mail rules say that you can't send e-mails to people at large, so we grouped people by major and each major got a different e-mail," said sophomore Judd Arnold, the Kirkwood ticket candidate for vice president of administration.\nHe said the process took a total of 10 hours, in which he and others within his ticket randomly searched for people alphabetically by last name on the IU-Bloomington Web page. After dividing the names by major, about 500 students in each school received a new message in their inbox. The ticket said they tried to take all precautions when sending the e-mails, although the list of recipients was not undisclosed.\n"We were trying to fashion a rule that would allow people to use e-mail but not get carried away with it," said graduate student Joe Walterman, elections commissioner. "But as you can tell, that's not easy to do. \n"As far as I'm concerned, the mass e-mail list is totally unreasonable."\nRepresentatives from the Kirkwood ticket said after sending the e-mail, they received responses from student groups thanking them for fashioning the list, saying they planned to use it for their organizations.\nUnder the IUSA election code's Title VI Violations, misuse of e-mail under University Information Technology Services guidelines or other unreasonable use of e-mail for campaigning is listed as a violation of code and grounds for contestment. UITS guidelines, though vague, insist that mass e-mail lists be utilized only for administrative or academic purposes.\nBut Kirkwood hasn't been the only ticket campaigning via cyberspace. Synergy and Steel both admitted to sending out e-mails reminding people to cast their votes but conceded that they were unsolicited.\n"We did it on a larger scale," Arnold said. "If you are going to hold us responsible, you must also hold them responsible. We are just beating them at their own game."\nSynergy claims its e-mails went to students with whom it had personal contact.\n"We had over 3,500 e-mails, and they all went out Monday night. But they were to people we actually talked to," said junior Brian Daviduke, the Synergy ticket candidate for student body president.\nSteel did the same. \n"It confuses me; I cant understand why they would do that. All we e-mailed were people who were our friends, people we knew," said junior Jeff Wuslich, Steel ticket candidate for president of the student body.\nWalterman said IUSA cannot prevent candidates from sending e-mails to friends urging them to vote for their ticket.\n"Nobody can tell them what to or not to send to their friends," he said. "I think the First Amendment still means something."\nAs for the rest of the election, Walterman said that e-mailing students will no longer be allowed. \nThe consequences of Kirkwood's actions have yet to be determined.\n"A lot of things are possible, including getting rid of the ticket," Walterman said.\nHe mentioned that e-mail could be a tool for getting out student votes, but usage should absolutely be reasonable.\nKirkwood feels it worked within the rules and said it will be surprised if any serious repercussions evolve.\n"Your teachers send you an e-mail to remind you if there is an important test or quiz…why doesn't the University send you an e-mail and remind you to vote?" said sophomore Blair Greenberg, the Kirkwood ticket candidate for treasurer.\nKirkwood said it didn't have an unfair advantage, as everyone has access to the addresses. \n"The rules don't explicitly say it's legal, but they don't explicitly say it's illegal," said Bill Gray, the Kirkwood ticket candidate for student body president.\nWalterman said what happens next is in the hands of the other tickets.\n"It's going to be up to the tickets to file a complaint, and they have until 5 p.m. on Thursday to do so," he said. "We can then have a trial and go from there."\nAs far as where he stands on the issue, he said he feels the mass e-mail lists were unreasonable and was concerned that anyone can respond to the entire e-mail list.\n"If they think they have my support, they are so sadly mistaken it boggles the mind," Walterman said.\nThe contending tickets are also up in arms about the alleged code violation. \n"It's too bad that their slogan isn't 'work hard, play fair,' " Daviduke said. He added that Synergy will file a complaint today with the elections committee in hopes that Kirkwood will be altogether banned from running in the election.\nSteel said it also planned to file a complaint, but separately, as Synergy opted to file independently for its own reasons.\n"We agree with them about filing a complaint, but we don't want to associate ourselves with Steel because we don't necessarily agree with how they've campaigned over the last month," Daviduke said.\nRepresentatives for the Steel ticket said they didn't understand why Synergy wanted to file separately.\nSteel's main concern regards the students who have been harassed, and although it would like to see at least a monetary fine imposed on Kirkwood, Wuslich said Steel wanted to make sure the students stop receiving e-mails.\n"Really, the damage has already been done," Wuslich said.\nBut Kirkwood contends that no damage has been incurred and that the response has been a positive one.\n"One thing I am really happy about, regardless, is that voter turnout is definitely going to be over 16 percent," Gray said. "A lot of people have been like, 'You know what? This is great. I didn't even know there were elections today.'"\nKirkwood said all the controversy is merely another attempt to keep things from changing in IUSA. \n"Because we e-mailed people, now they actually know to vote and things can actually change," Greenberg said.