Elections Board monitors campaign expense reports but is limited by Elections Code

Due to the nature of the Elections Board of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council, there have been difficulties in the
past to ensure that all candidates strictly follow the regulations
““ a situation that is no different this year.

Most recently, the code may have been broken by the Elections
Board itself. USAC candidates were required to submit a detailed
account of their primary campaign spending Monday, and the board is
responsible for releasing and verifying the expense accounts for
each candidate on the first day of voting, which is today, but has
not yet compiled the information.

During the weeks before campaigning was allowed, some candidates
campaigned indirectly either through the use of Web sites or fliers
that campaigned for slates and not individuals.

“It is an imperfect system. There is a lot of room for
interpretation,” said Roy Samaan, USAC E-board chairman.

The Elections Board, composed of six students, is in charge of
reviewing all expenses reported by candidates.

The board spot checks and conducts random audits of submissions
to check for any discrepancies, said Shiva Bhaskar, E-board vice
chairman and former Daily Bruin Viewpoint columnist.

Samaan said the board tries its best to make sure that
candidates’ reports of spending and contributions are
accurate. But the Election Code does not give the board the
authority to regulate what is reported.

“We have to take whatever they give us at face value. …
We can’t police how people spend; we can only police what
they report to us,” he said.

Samaan acknowledges that there is some confusion regarding what
values are reported and thinks that some requirements could be more
explicit.

The expenses of candidates running on a slate, for example, are
especially difficult to monitor. The code does not recognize
slates, and the board can only regulate individual spending rather
than the expenses for a group.

This rule provides a campaign finance loophole for slates
because campaign material promoting a slate that does not include
any specific names does not have to be reported.

Slate campaigning resulted in complications with last
year’s candidate expense accounts. Some candidates submitted
the costs for their whole campaign by including entire slate
expenditures, but others submitted their individual costs, which
included only the slate expenditures that they personally
funded.

“There was a confusion in the E-code regarding reporting
policy. … Half of the candidates reported one way, and half
reported another way,” said Joseph Vardner, last year’s
E-board chairman.

The major discrepancies between the figures of candidates’
expense accounts prevented them from ever being published last year
as the code requires.

Even if there are differences between candidate expense reports
this year, Samaan said they will definitely be published as an
advertisement in the the Daily Bruin this week.

In addition to its inability to fully monitor expense reporting,
the Elections Board also is not able to address code infractions
that are not apparent in candidates’ expense accounts.

Violations, such as unauthorized spending, can only be dealt
with if a report is submitted to the board within 24 hours of the
time of misconduct.

Bhaskar said it is the prerogative of other students and
candidates to bring concerns to the E-board.

The recent inclusion of specific voluntary spending caps in the
election code offers a mechanism to regulate campaign financing.
Purely voluntary caps offer candidates the option to limit their
spending without being penalized for noncompliance.

Michael Cohn, adviser for the Elections Board, said he remembers
a time from his undergraduate experience at UCLA 16 years ago when
a candidate spent $10,000 on his campaign.

“It think that overall spending for student elections has
come more into alignment with what it should be,” he
said.

But Jerry Mann, student support services director, speculates
that students may initially agree to the voluntary caps but will
then readjust their spending to compete with other candidates who
choose to spend more.

“We probably will get into an escalating race of
expenditures, which unfortunately we can’t do much
about,” he said.

But Samaan hopes candidates remain true to the spirit of the
code.

“There are always going to be loopholes that people can
take advantage of. We just hope that candidates don’t do
that,” he said.