Big Ten found guilty, fined but not disqualified

The IU Student Association Election Commission has denied BtownUnited’s request calling for rival ticket Big Ten’s disqualification. However, the commission fined Big Ten $957.93 for six violations of the IUSA election code.

The ruling came less than 24 hours after Thursday’s public hearing, during which both tickets presented the facts and personal statements to the commission.  

Big Ten was found guilty of committing six out of seven “clear and convincing” violations of the IUSA elections code.

Only one accusation, voter fraud, was unanimously denied due to “insufficient” evidence.

BtownUnited alleged that Big Ten solicited votes at the Herman B Wells Library bus stop, the alley between the art museum and the Ora L. Wildermuth Center, areas near the Hutton Honors College, outside of Foster Quad’s Gresham food court and at the Jordan Hall bus stop, according to photographs and statements in the BtownUnited complaint.

BtownUnited’s Barrett Tenbarge and Neil Kelty  stated these locations were not able to be reserved in accordance with the Student Activities Office policy.

The commission voted unanimously that these five locations were in violation of section 304 of the elections code. The sixth violation came from a Big Ten volunteer soliciting votes within 50 feet of a 21-and-over establishment.

The court came to the decision after BtownUnited submitted both a picture and eyewitness report of the Big Ten supporter’s action.

Justin Kingsolver, Big Ten’s president-elect, responded to the complaints, saying his ticket did not knowingly violate any election codes and acted “in good faith” to rectify potential violations by having volunteers leave disputed locations and remove tables that were not at approved voting locations.

Once at least three violations were determined, the commission had to assess if the violations were “materially contributory” to the election results, as stated in section 605 of the elections code.  
 
Though the commission determined Big Ten’s six violations were relevant to the election, they found them “not significant to the outcome of the election” as evidenced by the high margin of victory — almost 1,800 votes — and thus did not constitute grounds for disqualification, according to the commission ruling.

The commission fined Big Ten penalties of 5 percent of total campaign expenditures for each violation, totaling 30 percent.

These fines were applied to the entire Big Ten executive ticket and will be assessed to their IUSA budget.