Just hours after voting closed in the 2019 Student Government election, the Election Supervisory Board fined the Goodman-Jean campaign for campaign worker and financial disclosure violations.
The Election Supervisory Board made their decision at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday. In its ruling, the board said the Goodman-Jean campaign failed to list the price for donated paint, disclose all active campaign workers and accurately label advertising material costs in their second financial disclosure.
The campaign was charged $20 for the donated paint and received three fines of five percent on their total expenditures, one for each violation. The fines brought their total costs to 118 percent of the $511 spending limit. If this limit is exceeded by more than 120 percent, candidates are automatically disqualified.
The financial disclosure and campaign worker complaints were filed by the Fanucci-Ivanova executive alliance campaign, and a hearing was held Tuesday night to discuss its merits.
Presidential candidate Izzy Fanucci, Elena Ivanova, vice presidential candidate and Plan II junior, and campaign manager Ian McEntee represented the Fanucci-Ivanova campaign at the Election Supervisory Board meeting. Presidential candidate Camron Goodman, Amie Jean, vice presidential candidate and finance senior, and Juan Jose, treasurer and supply chain management senior, were present from the Goodman-Jean campaign.
“The last financial disclosure and agent list uploaded by the Camron and Amie executive alliance did not list an up-to-date record of their agents nor workers,” said Fanucci, speech pathology and psychology junior. “Furthermore, Camron and Amie have placed a 8-foot plywood board on the 24th Street next to (the) Kappa Delta house. This is a double violation, as it is not reported on either financial record, and it has been out since the beginning of the campaign.”
Goodman said he submitted his initial agent and worker list by the Feb. 21 deadline, though the list of workers needed an update. These updates were emailed to the Election Supervisory Board on Feb. 24.
“I was unaware that I had to re-list all my agents and workers if they had not been changed since the previous list provided,” finance senior Goodman said. “I thought it was just a spot just to update them. So it was my error, and I do understand the form, and I apologize for the misunderstanding.”
In regards to the financial allegations, McEntee said the Goodman-Jean disclosures referenced a foam board rather than the plywood board on West 24th Street. Goodman said he “misphrased the (plywood) board” on his financial disclosure but has a receipt for the item.
When asked by an Election Supervisory Board member why they waited until now to make a complaint about the plywood board instead of at the first financial disclosure deadline, the Fanucci-Ivanova campaign said they thought the board would be listed on the second financial disclosure. Additionally, McEntee said the campaign debated for six and a half hours over whether or not they wanted to make a complaint.
“I want to ensure to all the campaigns and the Election Supervisory Board that we did not file this complaint maliciously or for any implicit personal benefit,” said McEntee, a humanities and sociology senior. “We have, however, realized repeating infractions of the rules that we have tried hard to follow, and we want to uphold the authority of these rules that we expect all teams to give equal acknowledgment. We believe we must safeguard the integrity of our guidelines in order to not set a bad precedent of apathy.”
