The ASUU Elections Committee unanimously ruled Activate Party presidential candidate Cameron Beech is guilty of violating election rules for disclosing campaign information to an “unaffiliated party” before posting day.
A grievance was filed against Beech for divulging information through a memo to The Chronicle before the day candidates are allowed to approach outside students about elections, Feb. 24.
Committee members ruled that The Chronicle constitutes an unaffiliated party because it is not involved in the Activate Party. They also argued that while Elections Registrar Lorraine Evans had approved the memo to be sent to other parties, she had not approved it to be sent to The Chronicle.
The committee decided that Beech and his running mate, Ryan Carrier, will not be able to actively campaign on the first day of dialogue week, Feb. 26. Other Activate candidates and campaign workers will still be able to approach students about the elections.
“The logic with this (consequence) is that the number of students reached by the article written would have been the same as the number of people Beech and Carrier could have reached in a day of active campaigning,” Evans said.
The dispute stems largely around Evans’ prior interpretation that active campaigning rules prohibit candidates from seeking out the media. She stated the policy on the ASUU elections blog.
Evans told The Chronicle on Tuesday that she would repeal the guidelines from her blog, so candidates would be able to openly seek out and comment to the press on platform positions and other news items, but will not be able to release memos or press statements unless requested to do so by reporters.
Beech said he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the Associated Students of the University of Utah and that he thinks the court will overturn it.
“It’s a sad day when ASUU begins censoring people with what they are allowed to say to the press,” Beech said.
The election grievance was filed against Beech for sending a campaign memo to The Chronicle on Jan. 14.
Beech had previously met with a Chronicle reporter, during which he introduced his running mate Ryan Carrier, discussed his intention to run an open campaign.
At the meeting, he also mentioned a memo that would be sent to the other parties disclosing the party’s color, contact information and intent to have a clean campaign. Beech said the memo would also be sent to The Chronicle.
The Chronicle printed an article mentioning the memo, “Beech reaches out to fellow student body president candidates,” on Jan. 16. Beech said he was not aware The Chronicle was writing the article on the memo.
The grievance was filed against Beech on Feb. 5, on the grounds that he had not kept campaign information within the party, as pre-active campaigning rules require.
At the grievance hearing on Feb. 6, Deputy Special Prosecutor Brad Clark argued that the campaign memo, which Evans approved to be sent to other parties, had been made external by the article in the newspaper, allowing it to be “seen by the student body at large” and giving Beech an unfair advantage.
Beech’s party argued that the Chronicle reporter did constitute an affiliated party because she is assigned to write about the ASUU elections and had already reported about Beech’s candidacy in November.
Beech also said that having a clarification of press relation rules, as presented on the Election Registrar’s blog, shows that a discrepancy is understandable. He said the memo was only meant as a “goodwill gesture” to other parties and The Chronicle.
Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Cameron Beech released the memo found in violation of elections rules to Chronicle reporter Rochelle McConkie.