Campaign expenses vary by candidate, slate
By Ellen Kersten
May 11, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Candidate expense reports for the Undergraduate Students
Association Council elections are now available, but the results
may not be a fully accurate representation of candidate
expenditures.
Expense reports range from $0 for unopposed Campus Events
commissioner candidate Jason Gaulton to $2,022 for presidential
candidate Doug Ludlow. This difference is due in large part to the
varied campaign strategies among slates and for independent
candidates.
Candidates of the Students First! slate chose to limit their
campaign spending with voluntary caps of $600 for president and
$400 for other positions. Students First! campaign manager Matt
Kaczmarek said by running a collective campaign, each of the eight
Students First! slate candidates equally divided campaign
costs.
Reported costs ended up being under the voluntary cap limits,
with a total of $287.30 for each Students First! candidate. But
candidates running under slates do not have to report slate
campaign material costs.
“We don’t run candidates that have $2,000 to spend
on a campaign. We run candidates that are concerned about the
issues,” said Kaczmarek in response to the fact that
independent candidate Ludlow spent about $300 less than the entire
Students First! slate.
“Our goal is to get our message across by telling students
what we want to work on. … We’re not about fortune
cookies,” he added, referring to Ludlow’s fortune
cookies stapled to campaign fliers.
As an independent presidential candidate, Ludlow hopes that
students will take into account that candidates running on a slate
are not required to report campaign costs for material that does
not include any individuals’ names, including certain fliers
and T-shirts.
Ludlow said he spent $1,000 of his total campaign expenses on
T-shirts, which he is distributing to supporters with a request for
a $5 donation to compensate for the costs.
“I am not personally spending $2,000. I could not afford a
$2,000 election,” he said, emphasizing that he would not even
have a campaign without the support of many friends.
With the combination of funds from T-shirt sales and donations
through other fundraisers, Ludlow anticipates that he will end up
spending a couple hundred dollars out of pocket.
“In reality, slates spend and enormous amount. … I am
just trying to use my resources well so that everyone on campus
will have all of the information available to make an informed
decision,” he said.
Unlike the Students First! slate, Equal Access Coalition slate
candidates did not choose to sign on to the voluntary spending
caps. Combined reported costs for Equal Access Coalition candidates
were almost twice as much as those of Students First!
candidates.
Equal Access Coalition presidential candidate Josh Lawson said
this discrepancy is due to the fact that his slate believes in
individual campaigns in addition to a collective slate
campaign.
“EAC runs the slate collectively of individuals. … We
want the emphasis more than previous years to be on the individual
in the context of the slate,” he said, noting that three out
of the eight Equal Access Coalition candidates chose to spend
additional funds on individual campaign expenses.
Lawson said the major campaign costs for his slate were the
large signboards and trifold fliers, which he hopes will get the
Equal Access Coalition message out to the most students.
The elections board is limited in its ability to enforce
comprehensive cost reports, but it was able to take action when
some candidates did not include proper documentation with their
expense reports.
All candidates on the EAC slate, as well as presidential
candidate Arash Mozayan Isfahani, general representative candidate
Michi Kono, and Community Service commissioner candidate Crystal
Lee ““ all independents ““ did not turn in receipts with
the candidate expense accounts.
“We talked to the candidates throughout the day to tell
them their receipts were due. … We had no choice but to place
sanctions,” said elections board chairman Roy Samaan.
Samaan said the board decided on what it considered a standard
first sanction, which called for candidates to refrain from
campaigning for one hour on Tuesday.
Internal vice president candidate Darren Chan also received a
campaigning sanction because he failed to turn in any report of his
expenses.
