ONE drops from race, citing internal rift

ONE University ticket leaders no longer want to be recognized as an active ticket in the IU Student Association elections, executives said Monday, even though their candidacy will remain on election ballots and votes cast will count.

Ticket candidates have chosen to cease campaigning because the combination of personalities has not been working well for several weeks, said second-year law student Ben Blair, presidential candidate for ONE University. Ticket organizers announced Monday night they will endorse the Btown ticket instead.  

ONE University candidates cannot officially withdraw from the election because of election code stipulations.

“Candidates wishing to withdraw their names from the ballot must request a withdrawal, in writing, from the Elections Commission by 5:00 p.m. , seven (7) calendar days before the IUSA Election begins,” according to the Code.

“Although ONE University has not been able to withdraw from the elections per elections code they will cease their campaign efforts,” said IUSA elections coordinator  Elizabeth Retana.

Since the ticket did not officially withdraw from the election, their name will remain on ballots and their votes will still be counted, Retana said.

A campaign e-mail sent Monday afternoon appears to be a primary cause for the ticket’s withdrawal, ONE University executives said.  

Executives of the ONE University ticket said many were unaware the e-mail was even being sent. And while the e-mail was sent from Presidential candidate Ben Blair’s account, Blair said he knew nothing about the e-mail.

“The e-mail in question to gather support from the student body in itself was not the problem,” Blair said. “The way the e-mail was sent out caused us concern. It was sent out in violation of section 702 of the elections code in that it did not put the e-mail
addresses of the recipients in the blind carbon copy line,” Blair said.

The executives said that if the e-mail had not been sent, they would not have “dropped out.”

“I knew about it moment I received it,” Blair said. “I sent an e-mail back instructing the sender to stop sending those e-mails.”

Section 702 of the elections code states that “any e-mail sent to multiple voters soliciting votes that does not have all e-mail addresses in the blind carbon copy line shall constitute a violation of this code.”

The ticket turned themselves in before getting caught, Retana said.

She said that by no means would the ticket automatically get disqualified.

IUSA president Luke Fields said if a ticket files a complaint or if the election commission files a complaint, the ticket will be charged of a violation and they will receive a hearing. If the ticket is unhappy with the decision, they can appeal and go to
the IUSA Supreme Court.

However, junior Jeff Fraser, chief of staff for the ONE University ticket, said the e-mail was part of the campaign and that the executives knew about it. Fraser would not explain why he thought Blair did not have knowledge of the message.

“I don’t know what to say,” Fraser said.

The ticket executives decided to take responsibility for the e-mail in question, because this occurred under the ticket’s name.

“How we decided to run (the) campaign was to hold onto high values. Running a clean campaign, even though it was not our fault, it was still under our name,” junior Samantha Israel, vice president of Congress for ONE. “We accept responsibility for these actions. We decided to run a clean campaign from beginning to end.”