Election rule violations result in two strikes against Dykyj/Wilson

Both Student Government presidential tickets were accused of two violations at an election board hearing held April 2.  

The charges against the Emily Kramp and Lauren Jencen campaign were dismissed, while the charges against the Chris Dykyj and Nikeya Wilson campaign were sustained.

Kramp said the violations against her campaign were over flyer postings. The first stated the campaign had unapproved flyers in the college of business and the second stated there were unapproved flyers on the health science campus.  

“We were within the rules for both,” Kramp said.

The Health Science Campus does not require approval for flyers, she said. And the flyers hung in the Stranahan building were approved through the office of marketing which supersedes the rule against hanging flyers in the college of business.

Kramp said she personally filed the chalking complaint against the Dykyj/Wilson ticket because they were filing numerous complaints against her own ticket through a third party.

 “We felt we had to make a statement to say that we’re not really standing for this,” she said.

Dykyj said he was not responsible for any prior complaints that were filed against the Kramp/Jencen campaign. 

“I didn’t ask anyone to file a complaint,” he said. “If any student or department did, it was of their own accord. If I wanted to file a complaint I would’ve done it myself and seen it through.”

Both of the Dykyj/Wilson violations dealt with chalking. The rule states that tickets are not allowed to chalk underneath awnings or overhangs. The campaign was found in violation at two locations:

• Beneath the breezeway between the library and the Student Union.
• Beneath the awning at the Centennial Mall fountain

Dykyj said Rebecca Bauer, UTMC research assistant, told his campaign if the chalk was cleaned up by 5 p.m. April 2 there would be no violation to the student code of conduct.

The chalking violations were cleaned up on the evening of April 1, he said.

The Election Board found the Dykyj/Wilson campaign guilty of both complaints and the campaign was given a violation to the code of conduct.

Dykyj said he found the ruling to be incorrect because his campaign did as the administration asked them to do.

“I feel there was a lack of proof that anybody in my campaign did it,” he said. “. . . And from the university standpoint, they don’t see it as a student conduct violation, but the e-board still does.”

The Kramp/Jencen campaign said they would like to continue campaigning and move past the complaints.

“It’s just an annoyance,” Kramp said “I’d really like to focus on campaigning rather than just filing complaints.”

Dykyj said he is going to continue campaigning to the best of his ability.

“I’m going to continue to push forward the campaign and try to win the student vote,” he said. “I feel even though these hearings can be detrimental to a campaign at this point in time, I’m not worried at all with my campaign.”

As of right now there are no points filed against the Kramp/Jencen campaign. The Dykyj/Wilson campaign chose not to disclose the amount of points they received, but said it was “not enough to be detrimental to our campaign in any way.”

Election Board Chair Tate Stricklin could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

 Danielle Gamble contributed to this story.