Hearing Board to review
election complaints
By Tim Williams
Senior Staff Writer
Independent SGA presidential candidate
Fabian Sifuentes will take three of four election complaints before the
University Hearing
Board Thursday after failing to come to
a full settlement with Election Commissioner John Martinez on Tuesday.
A pre-hearing discussion between the two
yielded little resolution for Sifuentes, who earlier requested that Student
Government
Association election results be overturned
because of Election Code violations committed by Student Voice Party members.
In the three remaining appeals, Sifuentes
is charging that outgoing SGA President James Robertson Jr. violated the
Election Code
when he failed to appoint a third commissioner;
that incoming SGA President Dawona Miller and other Student Voice Party
members broke the code when they knowingly
posted a Student Voice banner within 50 feet of the University Center poll;
and that
the SGA senate broke the code when it
decided to push elections back by about 15 days.
Sifuentes dropped his appeal of an election
commission decision that approved of the short notice given candidates
concerning the
time and location of the candidate seminar,
which was held in mid-March.
The disagreement now goes before the University
Hearing Board, which is most likely the last stop for Sifuentes' complaints.
Martinez and Sifuentes can call witnesses
and present evidence during the closed-door proceedings.
"I'm looking forward to calling James Robertson
Jr., if he shows up," Sifuentes said.
Using minutes from recent SGA meetings,
Sifuentes said he plans to prove that Robertson violated the election code
by not
appointing a full election commission
in a timely manner, a cause of later election problems.
Martinez said he will call Robertson to
talk about commission appointments and Miller to talk about the senate's
passage of the
election calendar.
"Victory would be for (the Hearing Board)
to go ahead and allow for the certification of the election and let Fabian
help revise the
election code," Martinez said.
The pre-hearing discussion attended by
Sifuentes, Martinez, University Hearing Board Chief Justice Sherice Simpson
and Assistant
Dean of Students Eddie Elizondo was marked
by a dispute as to whether Sifuentes could have Ed Davis, a campaign worker,
represent him during the meeting.
"We were under the impression that (Davis)
could be in there after a conversation with Elizondo on Friday," Sifuentes
said.
Davis is not emotionally attached to the
outcome and is a better speaker under the circumstances, Sifuentes said.
Since Davis wasn't listed as an official
complainant, he was not allowed to attend the pre-hearing, Elizondo said.
But he could be
called as a witness during the trial.
