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.

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.

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.

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.

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