In this Monday’s GUSA presidential election, Kelly Hampton (SFS ‘05) and Luis Torres (CAS ‘05) won 36.3 percent of the vote before being disqualified for campaign misconduct. Adam Giblin (SFS ‘06) and Eric Lashner (CAS ‘05) won the election with the second highest vote at 32.3 percent. Though the assembly has yet to confirm the results, GUSA election commissioners were right to rule against Hampton and Torres.
No candidate should insert flyers in campus media, let alone flyers rebutting an editorial. It’s not a matter of freedom of press; it’s a matter of violation of an organization’s autonomy. If Hampton-Torres wanted to argue against the editorial, they should have flyered around campus like they did to promote their candidacy in the first place.
Unfortunately, this was not Torres’ first experience with election violation; last year, the campaign on which Torres worked was also disqualified for a similar violation. When repeat offenders violate regulations, it not only reflects poorly on them, but also shows that consequences for initial violations need to be more serious.
Still, while the regulations worked this time, GUSA needs to clean up its act to clarify exactly what can be used to promote a candidacy, and they need to make the regulations better known. A clearer stance needs to be taken on recruiting voters by Instant Message, and the existing prohibitions against e-mail need to be reemphasized.
The regulatory role of GUSA’s election commission is an important one, and with the strong political culture surrounding the campus the competition for positions is sure to remain fierce in the future. The limitations on campaigning need to be better publicized to the general student body.
If unassuming students who picked up The Hoya on Friday were more aware of how the Hampton-Torres flyer violated election regulations, there clearly would have been a greater uproar about the incident before Monday night. While it made for great drama in the heat of the moment, Georgetown hardly needed to turn into another Florida in the chill of February. Let’s hope that in the future such drama will be avoided, by increased student awareness, personal restraint and clearer regulations.
