By Megan Higdon
Western Herald
Excited and relieved were the two words that Aaron Booth and Joey Blaszczyk used to describe how they felt after the announcement of the election results yesterday at the Western Student Association meeting.
Aaron Booth
Of the 1589 students that voted for a president and vice president, Booth received 829 of the votes, while Andrew Ladd and Chris Rettich received 716 votes – a difference of 113 votes.
The remaining 36 went to write-ins.
“We weren’t going to let anything bring us down,” Booth said after the senate meeting. “Every vote definitely counted.”
Along with the announcement of the president-elect, a student referendum to support a sustainability fund passed by 60 percent.
There were 1664 total respondents that voted for the SFI fund.
Ryan Koziatek, a senator for the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Sustainability Fund Initiative said he was not surprised by the results.
“It’s better than passing by 51 percent,” he said. “Sixty percent is a pretty good portion of students’ voices.”
Seven percent out of the 22,623 eligible undergraduate and graduate students voted.
However, the SFI is not yet finalized, it must be approved by the Board of Trustees.
Despite Booth being named president-elect, the election drama is still not over.
Three trials will be held by the Judicial Council on Sunday, Katelyn Kivel, senior justice, said.
One trial will be held for an appeal of a demerit that would have been given to the Booth campaign for writing in sidewalk chalk underneath the overhang of the Bernhard Center.
The second trial will concern another appeal regarding a mass e-mail encouraging a vote for the Booth campaign that was sent out to the Panhellenic Council.
Kivel said that the allegation is that the Booth campaign acquired the council’s e-mail list from the group’s president.
Both instances were in violation of the Student Elections Code.
The last trial will be the case of Ladd and Rettich versus the ECC.
“I contested the results of the election,” Ladd said. “We’re trying to prove that the ECC did not follow up in all of our complaints.”
Ladd and Rettich will be taking their case to the Judicial Council this Sunday against the WSA Election Control Committee. Ladd’s accusation is that the ECC failed to penalize the Booth campaign when election guidelines were, from his view, violated.
One alleged incident Ladd pointed out was when the Booth slate campaigned in the Food Tube, which connects Henry and Bigelow Halls to Bigelow Cafeteria.
Ladd would not provide further comment on the charges.
However, ECC Chair Alex Roman said that the ECC followed all of their guidelines.
“I believe that myself and the Elections Control Committee deliberated accurately, unbiased and clear results to the best of our ability as entrusted to us by the senate, the speaker, and the executive slate,” Roman said.
“In my opinion, the election results will not be overturned.”
Booth maintains that he and his campaign followed all guidelines.
“We didn’t do any shady business,” he said. “We know we followed the SEC line by line.”
According to Katelyn Kivel the election results themselves are not being contested but the handling of the results are being contested.
“The judicial council wants to avoid the fiasco that happened last year,” she said, adding that the trial has the potential to overturn the results of the election.
About briand
Booth’s whole campaign was shady. Ladd should have won rightfully so.
Good thing to see the campaign and candidate representing high and ethical standards, original ideas, moral integrity, hard work, experience and an understanding of rules won this election… Oh wait he DIDN’T. Andrew worked for his votes and didn’t need to bend rules, or totally disregard them when he had the chance.
Building on the Past=continuing past unethical campaign practices that make the election illegitimate.
Enhancing the Present=When the best cheater/rule manipulator/marketer wins, not the best candidate or the person with best ideas.
Envisioning the Future=eliminating any credibility that our Student Association or University hold because their ‘elected’ student leadership can’t follow rules, and the body tasked with enforcing them can’t enforce them fairly or properly.
Someone once said, “Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under,” and I am whole heartedly ashamed of the way this election has been handled. WSA represents the students of WMU and I don’t think that our students deserve a leader that doesn’t represent their values and morals.
The university defined academic dishonesty as, “Including but not limited to the following: Cheating, fabrication, falsification, forgery, multiple submission, plagiarism, complicity, or other forms of academic dishonesty.” If you do any of those in a class, you are kicked out. If you do any of those in a WSA election, you are declared a winner.
Past, Present, Future. PSHH
Ladd caused this whole ordeal.
As an observer of the campaigns, election control committee, and overall election, I have come to see many things that others have not.
Ladd/Rettich knew that they didn’t have a chance against Booth/Blaszczyk so instead of campaigning ETHICALLY, they decided to slander Booth’s name and flood the Election Control Committee with complaints. The reason why the Election Control Committee overlooked some of the complaints is because they were OVERLOADED with minuscule complaints from Ladd. These complaints range from chalking under an awning to residence hall posters. They tried ANYTHING to get Booth/Blaszczyk thrown out of the election. Ladd/Rettich turned this campaign into a watch dog campaign and it just hurt them in the long run.
If there was any shady business happening, it was between Ladd and his supporters. Free t-shirts were given away to students even though the SEC says that’s not allowed. Don’t say that people paid for them because I got one – for free. On Wednesday, facebook statuses started to go as low as saying “vote for the only ethical campaign” and citing the Student Election Code with violations. Well Ladd, according the the Student Election Code, that could be considered as enforcing the SEC and the election. Aside from all of that, Ladd needed to tarnish Booth’s reputation just so he could get a lousy vote or two. Well guess what Ladd? YOU LOST. GET OVER IT.
The student voices have been heard. Don’t let Ladd/Rettich take that away because his team is acting childish “he doesn’t agree.” Get over yourself.
Stop being a sore loser, Ladd. Don’t be like Nordstrand/Dunsmore. You won’t be liked.
As Someone who was supporting the Booth/Blazczyk team my opinion is a bit bias, but I agree with ” WMU has spoken” has to say. I was appalled at the Facebook statuses that were put up by supporters of the Ladd/Rettich campaign. The fact that you allowed your supporters to post things like this, as well as posting them yourself is something I was highly shocked about. At one point you had something posted about ” Voting on Fair and Ethical Campaigning” and your supporters were saying things such as “Choose the candidate who wants it for the people not someone who wants it for the position” and ” Choose the candidates that runs an ethical, demerit free campaign.” Lets talk about slander. And the fact that you bring up “the Booth slate campaigned in the Food Tube, which connects Henry and Bigelow Halls to Bigelow Cafeteria.” is rather shocking considering that Aaron asked the Chair of the ECC if it was okay to hand out flyers there, ( in case you’re wondering Alex Roman did say it was okay) considering that he was at least 100 ft from a ” polling location” and it was considered to be an ” open area” because it is unlocked ” 24-7″.
Also when it comes to chalking, you too, Andrew violated the rules if we want to get technical, according the RSO handbook when you chalk you must be at least 20 feet from the entrance to a building, which there are multiple cases where you weren’t. If you want the rules to be ” enforced” fairly Andrew, you have to abide by them as well and accept what happens when you don’t.
All I can say is Congratulations Aaron and Joey, as well as to the rest of your slate, you have done a wonderful job and don’t let the the fact that they can’t accept the fact they lost get to you. You will do wonderful things with the WSA and I can’t wait to see what else you have to bring to the table.
First off, Stop using names like “WMU has spoken” or “WMU Student” or anything else like that, have the courage to put your name to what you say, unless you know what you are saying is untrue and don’t want to face up to it.
Second, No matter what happens, the JC should no be focusing on what happened last year, if Booth broke the rules then the JC should uphold the integrity of the WSA and rule accordingly, if they rule with the mindset that they don’t want to have what happened last year happened again and ignore the proposed rule breaking then the WSA will have lost its legitimacy.
Third, both sides keep it clean, its not a major election, and the WSA president doesn’t enact policy so clam down everyone.
I would first like to congratulate Aaron & Joey on their exciting news, and the amount of student support was overwhelming!! It’s a great day to be a Bronco with Aaron and Joey & their slate working hard and taking charge :]
The attempts to undermine the Booth-Blasczyck campaign by the Ladd/Rettich slate AND their supporters were ill received. The facebook statuses were inaccurate and attacked the Booth-Blasczyck campaign instead of talking about selling points in their own campaign. The Herald has also made several critical errors while covering the election that could have been easily avoided. The Herald has lost the respect of many readers.
For the record, we paid for those campaign t-shirts ourselves; Andrew did not buy them nor did he give them away. I’ve got the carbon copy of my check to prove it.