Judicial board rejects third petition against election board in a week
The judicial board issued a petition against the election board Friday, the third petition it has rejected this week. (Ed Qiao/Daily Bruin senior staff)
By Rupan Bharanidaran
May 18, 2018 10:31 p.m.
The undergraduate student government judicial board rejected a petition against the election board Friday, marking the third rejected petition this week.
The judicial board denied to review a petition filed by Matthew Richard and Ramneek Hazrah, who claimed the election board did not follow the judicial board’s orders to issue a reasonable sanction for Bruins United candidates Bella Martin and Victoria Solkovits engaging in attempted voter coercion during the Undergraduate Students Association Council election campaign. The petitioners also claimed the election board did not issue a reasonable sanction for voter privacy invasion in Sanction Cases 67 to 71.
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 in Sanction Case 59.
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 election board also released findings from Sanction Cases 67 to 71 on Tuesday, investigating new complaint cases related to bloc voting and voter coercion. However, the board found no evidence to issue a sanction.
The judicial board said Friday it rejected Richard and Hazrah’s petition because it already issued an order asking the election board to issue a reasonable sanction for attempted voter coercion. The judicial board added that the Sanction Cases 67 to 71 that the petitioners cite do not all have allegations of voter privacy invasion.
This is the third petition filed by Richard and Hazrah and their second petition rejected by the judicial board. The first petition they filed led to the judicial board ordering the election board to investigate new allegations of voter coercion and issue reasonable sanction for attempted voter coercion. The judicial board however rejected a petition filed by the two against election board Thursday for being too convoluted, adding it did not have the capacity to hold a hearing for all of the alleged violations listed in the petition.
Nicholas Yu, the chief justice of the judicial board, said that although some of the rejected petitions have substance and merit, they contained a lot of factual errors and did not conform to the board’s rules.
He added the deadline to submit petitions against the election board was Thursday because all appeals to election board decisions have to be submitted within two days after the finding is released.
