Camden Sharkey, a defendant on behalf of the GOLD ticket, spoke at the Shutze v. Exel case, streamed via Zoom on April 25, 2024. (Lucy Adlen/CU Independent)
The University of Colorado Boulder’s Student Government released the spring 2024 election results on the morning of April 8.
There were five amendments proposed to the CUSG constitution on the election ballot. Of these, all five amendments were approved. Out of the seven candidates vying for four representative-at-large seats, Jeb Brown, Suho Jaeger, Morgan McDonough and Samuel Veta were elected to the representative council.
However, candidates in the tri-executive race disputed issues concerning campaign expenditure reports.
Three groups of students competed in the tri-executive race for the chance to serve as spokespeople for the student body and provide goals for CUSG’s executive cabinet. The Exel ticket, comprised of Grace Covney, Alex Radz and Tyler Rowan, led the race with 54.9% of the vote in the third round of voting.
However, the runner-up, the GOLD ticket, consisting of Connor Chancey, McKenna Schutze and Nicholas Brand, will be in office for the 2024-25 academic year. This comes after a ruling by the CUSG appellate court on April 25 regarding election infractions in the Schutze v. Exel case.
The GOLD ticket members filed an infraction against the Exel ticket, which ultimately resulted in the disqualification of the Exel ticket and the appointment of the GOLD ticket to the tri-executive position. The court ruled in favor of the GOLD ticket and penalized the Exel ticket with 12 infraction points, the amount required to overturn an election.
According to the court ruling, Exel had neglected to include a white plastic table and folding chairs in their expenditure report. The election code stipulates that all campaigning materials, even donations, must be listed on the expenditure reports to maintain a free and fair election.
“We were essentially disqualified because of the tables,” said Alex Radz, a member of the Exel ticket.
The white plastic folding table and chairs are the property of the Chi Psi fraternity house. Exel members Alex Radz and Tyler Rowan are tenants of the fraternity house and argued that the items constituted private property.
Exel members argued that two members of the GOLD ticket also maintained a residency at a fraternity house and also received permission to use the fraternity table and chairs. However, unlike Exel, GOLD listed these items within its expenditure report.
“If we are continuing to entertain this idea that the tables that they used are their own personal property and thus should not be considered, I believe it’s quite frankly out of line,” stated Camden Sharkey, CUSG’s intern director, during his defense of the GOLD ticket.
GOLD ticket members also emphasized the many volunteers who worked the table that were not included in the Exel expenditure report.
Before the appeal, the infractions tribunal established that the ownership of the tables from the fraternity was considered a donation.
The Exel ticket appealed the claim and made the case that GOLD improperly submitted the infraction, and in itself, violated the election code.
In an email communicating the deadline for infraction submissions, the election commissioner mistakenly wrote a deadline time of Wednesday at 8 p.m. GOLD’s submission was within the timeline established by the election commissioner; however, Exel pointed out that this violated the election code which stipulates that finance infractions must be submitted within 24 hours of the infraction submission posting. This means the deadline outlined by the election code was supposed to be 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
The court ruled that this was a mistake on behalf of the election commissioner, not the plaintiffs. The arguments emphasized the failures of the election code to account for the various ways the code can be interpreted.
As for the tables and chairs, the court opinion recommended revisions to the election code, which was reinforced by the Exel ticket.
“For future people that run, the code needs to be clear enough so that there’s no loopholes or areas in which you can misinterpret it in a way that affects your ticket poorly like it did with [Exel],” said Tyler Rowan, a member of the Exel ticket.
The members of Exel emphasized the importance of the student body’s voice and their representation in elections.
“If you told 95% of our voters that we are now disqualified because we didn’t list the tables we used on a piece of paper, they would be like, ‘well, that’s not very just not very fair,’ and they would not be happy with that,” Rowan stated.
The GOLD ticket, which campaigned on expanding student resources, sustainability and access, will be sworn in on May 2.
“Come the first day of classes, we hope to have at least tangible progress that can be seen by the student body that represents these points in action,” the GOLD ticket wrote in a statement to the CU Independent.
The GOLD ticket plans to consider the court opinions regarding the election code to ensure future election integrity.
“The momentum of our ticket and leadership ability has never slowed down and if anything, increases every day – we are truly grateful for the opportunity to serve the student body … We will continue to prioritize the student body above all, and cannot wait to get started,” stated the GOLD ticket.
Contact CU Independent Assistant News Editor Lucy Adlen at lucy.adlen@colorado.edu.
