Signage denoting the entrance to CUSG’s offices on the first floor of the UMC. Oct. 15, 2021 (Henry Larson/CU Independent)
The University of Colorado Boulder’s student government finalized its tri-executive election with a controversial move by university administration.
On May 2, the Office of Student Affairs sent out an email to student government officials and tri-executive candidates announcing that the Exel ticket would be in office for the 2024-25 academic year despite the ruling from student government courts disqualifying them.
D’Andra Mull, the vice chancellor for student affairs and Devin Cramer, the acting dean of students and associate vice chancellor for student affairs, wrote in the email, which was shared with the CU Independent, that consideration of the election code was not “appropriate” in the court’s decision disqualifying Exel.
“Upon reviewing relevant documents and speaking with CU Student Government leadership, University Administration overturned the CUSG Appellate Court’s decision to disqualify the Exel ticket from the tri-executive race,” said a spokesperson for the university in a statement. “While the Appellate Court was acting on a good faith effort to follow the election process, underlying complexities led to specific requirements in the process not being followed.”
The grounds for Exel’s disqualification were based in Section 702(6) of the election code, which states that “failing to report sources of funding or severely misrepresenting or failing to report expenditures” could warrant removal from candidacy.
The CUSG appellate court ruled in favor of Exel’s disqualification because they neglected to include a folding table and chairs in their expenditure report, per an infraction filed by the competing GOLD ticket. Despite Exel winning 54.9% of the vote in the third round of voting, GOLD was set to take office for the 2024-25 academic year until the university intervened.
According to Alex Radz, a member of the Exel ticket, the university decision followed an email he sent to Cramer asking for further clarification on the student government court decisions and election code as it related to their disqualification. The Exel team declined to share this email with the CU Independent.
Section II.C.3 of the Chancellor’s Agreement grants the dean of students and vice chancellor of student affairs the ability to overturn decisions made by CUSG leadership if they do not comply with federal and state regulations or university policies.
When asked if there was a specific policy violated that warranted university action, a university spokesperson wrote, “Disqualifying candidates from such important positions despite the will of the student voters would be a significant disruption of the university process. This decision follows university processes and supports the student population’s vote.”
John Masulit, CUSG’s chief of staff for the 2023-24 school year, found himself frustrated by the administration’s decision. He sent an email to Chancellor Phil DiStefano on May 4 asking him to review the decision.
“This sets a very dangerous precedent about the way that administration can step in in order to resolve an election because we have systems,” Masulit said. “The normal system allows the students to deal with their own business which is running the election and then tabulating the votes and then adjudicating any supposed issues that arise during a campaign.”
Masulit took issue with the university administration’s involvement because of the “dangerous precedent” it set. To him, it created the potential for student groups close to administration to ask for an election to be overturned in their favor.
“What that does is it allows the administration to strategically step in and intervene whenever they feel like. If they had issues with the election code, the proper route would have been to approach legislative council earlier in the year and say ‘We don’t think that this [the election code] is super clear’… and legislative council could have voted to change it right then and there so that the election would have run more smoothly,” Masulit said.
In response to Masulit’s email, a spokesperson for the Office of the Chancellor confirmed that the decision to instate Exel was final following the Division of Student Affairs’ review of the appellate court’s decision.
Despite the outcome of this election, the newly inaugurated tri-executives, students Grace Covney, Tyler Rowan and Alex Radz, repeatedly stated they didn’t want university involvement in elections to become the precedent.
“This was very unorthodox,” Radz said. “We don’t expect or want anything similar to this moving forward.”
However, Covney attested to the fairness of the university administration’s decision as her ticket ultimately won the popular vote among students.
“Whoever the student body elected needed to be sworn in, in our opinion,” she said.
For their first term, Exel members stated they wanted to hire the new election commissioner as soon as possible and start ironing out issues they saw in the election code.
“The election code is kind of written in a way to be misinterpreted in any way to choose what you feel,” Rowan said. “We aim to ideally make the election process go a bit more smoothly and make it so there’s no loopholes in the election code where the student body’s voice can be negated.”
As for the losing ticket, GOLD candidate Connor Chauncey voiced his displeasure with the university’s involvement in the election weeks after CUSG certified the results.
“After not being permitted to voice our side or speak to the administration as Exel did, we are extremely disappointed with the decision and view it as unfair,” Chauncey wrote in a statement. However, he added that he and his fellow GOLD members still want to serve the student body and recognize the importance of CUSG to student life.
In the meantime, Exel members are eager to begin working for CU Boulder students, acting as spokespeople for the student body and providing goals for CUSG’s executive cabinet.
“We’re excited to work for the students this year and we hope to make everyone happy,” Rowan said. “I hope people see change on campus with the things we do.”
Contact CU Independent Managing Editor Ann Marie Vanderveen at ann.vanderveen@colorado.edu.
