Judicial board declines two petitions against election board

The undergraduate student government judicial board rejected two petitions against the election board Thursday.

The judicial board denied to review a petition by Rafi Sands, a former Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president and member of the Bruins United slate, claiming the election board made a number of violations to the judicial board order that was released May 10, according to the memorandum from the judicial board to Sands.

One of Sands’ claims was that the election board violated judicial board orders by reinvestigating Sanction Case 59 against Bruins United candidates Bella Martin and Victoria Solkovits, who were found to have engaged in voter coercion, without any new evidence for voter coercion allegations. The judicial board ordered the election board May 10 to issue a reasonable sanction for Martin and Solkovits after a hearing May 9, where the election board admitted it failed to adequately investigate the case and made a premature ruling.

After a reinvestigation, the election board announced Tuesday it found that Martin and Solkovits engaged in voter coercion. However, following a decision by Election Board Chair Jack Price, the board did not issue any sanction against Martin, who was elected general representative.

The judicial board ordered the election board last week to investigate new allegations and reinvestigate all cases related to voter privacy invasion, attempted voter coercion and voter coercion with all evidence provided at the hearing May 9 and to accept any new evidence submitted by 11:59 p.m. May 11. The judicial board also ordered the election board to issue a reasonable sanction for Martin’s and Solkovits’ attempted voter coercion.

The judicial board said it rejected the petition because Sands cited a judicial order that was not relevant to Sanction Case 59. Sands claimed the judicial board order did not give the election board the authority to reinvestigate the sanction case because no new evidence was submitted, besides the testimonies at the judicial board hearing.

The judicial board also denied a petition filed by Matthew William Richard and Ramneek Hazrah, who claimed the election board violated a variety of election code bylaws, the USAC’s constitution and the judicial board’s order last week.

The judicial board rejected the petition because it found it to be too convoluted and added it does not have the capacity to hold a hearing for all of the alleged violations listed in the petition.