SGA Supreme Court docks Abhari votes, she still wins presidency

By Michael Kennedy

For the second consecutive year, the future Student Government Association president spent the night before the election results were announced fending off allegations of campaign violations. For the second consecutive year, the future SGA president was docked votes.

In a change of rules, endorsements from outside businesses and organizations were allowed in this year’s elections. But with that change came a multitude of complications. The SGA election rules state: “Under no circumstances may any organ of the University…endorse a candidate/slate for office…” For an hour and a half on Sunday, March 7, the Supreme Court tried to determine the intention of that rule. Election results were originally to be announced Friday, but the Supreme Court ordered that the results be sealed until it made a ruling.

Andrew Carroll, current SGA chief of staff, alleged that the CardStrong slate committed a violation when The Province endorsed them on its Facebook page and when Sana Abhari, CardStrong’s candidate for SGA president, thanked The Province for its support.

“My motivation is to make sure that these elections are conducted with some sense of integrity,” said Carroll.

Abhari contested that any wrongdoing was unintentional and merely stemmed from the ambiguity of election rules.

“I hope that the court sees that if there were violations of the rule that they were certainly not intentional and that they were due to a lack of understanding of the rules—the rules being very vague at times,” Abhari said prior to the case.

During the campaign, The Province posted a Facebook status stating that “The Province is CardStrong,” with a link to CardStrong’s Facebook page. Carroll alleged that this endorsement violated the election rules since The Province has formed a partnership with the university. His evidence was that The Province can send delegates to the Resident Student Association, U of L Police respond to 911 calls from The Province, and that U of L President Dr. James R. Ramsey was at the grand opening of The Province. He claimed that all of this proves that The Province is an organ of U of L.

The CardStrong slate, represented at the proceedings by Aaron Price, a second-year law student, claimed that this was not true. Price argued that the term “organ” implies subordination and that The Province is not subordinate to the university. He cited a partnership with the Kentucky Derby as a similar relationship. Carroll claimed U of L’s affiliation with the athletic department was a more accurate comparison.

A representative from The Province said that it is considered on-campus housing by the university and that students living there count towards the university’s statistics as on-campus residents.

Price called Alex Gripshover, a student and community assistant at The Province, to testify. Gripshover said he is in charge of The Province’s online marketing and that he made the endorsement on The Province page, unaware that it could be considered a campaign violation. He also testified that he did not believe The Province to be an organ of U of L, since it has not yet signed a contract with the university and their marketing efforts are completely independent of U of L’s influence. He said that he did not consult with his superiors or the CardStrong slate prior to making the posting and that he was able to make the post within the terms of his employment at The Province.

“I’m the assistant manager of the property, but I don’t know of us putting anything on [Facebook] for it,” a representative from The Province said. “We usually just put our specials or what’s going on at our properties.”

Kurtis Frizzell, the CardStrong candidate for academic vice president, said that he removed the link from the CardStrong Facebook page and called Gripshover to remove it from The Province page, which Gripshover did as well.

After deliberation, the Supreme Court ruled that Abhari should be docked .75 percent of her vote total, since she accepted the endorsement. But the ruling stated that the rest of the slate should only receive a formal reprimand. The court said that it should more clearly define what is considered an organ of the university before the next election.

“I’m very glad that the docking didn’t affect the entire slate,” said Abhari. “If the court is here, struggling to define what an organ of the university is, distinguishing between The Province and The Bellamy, how could an average student or a candidate do the same?”
Carroll was relieved by the court’s ruling and said he was glad the court is setting a precedence to help clarify this ambiguous issue.

“There is a team that understood the rules and chose to bend the rules to their advantage,” said Carroll. “And I think that is a disservice to students when teams are campaigning unfairly.”

Members from the CardStrong slate won all of the top four positions in SGA for next year.