Almost a week after the election, FACE’s campaign for Student Senate has finally concluded, as all members of the ticket — including the two who won seats — have been disqualified by the Board of Elections.
After reviewing the party’s campaign finance report, the board found multiple Class A violations of senate’s election rules, Board of Elections Chairman Chauncey Jackson said. The penalty for Class A violations is disqualification of the ticket.
The decision leaves two vacant seats because At-Large Senator-elect Rachel Ackerman and University College Senator-elect Michael Stover were both disqualified.
The finance report FACE turned in last week stated that it had more than $2,700 remaining from its campaign contributions and that it made an $884 profit off its T-shirt fundraiser. After the Board of Elections asked the party to provide more information, FACE sent a new report stating that it had only about $300 left over and that it lost $884 from the T-shirt sale.
That discrepancy was one of the violations the board found, Jackson said.
“We’re not talking about a mistake here. This is not just, ‘Oops, we put the wrong number here,’” he said.
FACE vice presidential candidate Sean Kelley said both reports might be inaccurate.
“I think the report was off,” he said. “These reports — I don’t want to say they’re like a song and dance, but they kind of are.”
Kelley said several aspects of the report are misleading or inaccurate, including the list of campaign contributions. The updated contribution report states that Kelley and treasurer candidate Chrysten Crockett each donated $500, the maximum for an executive candidate. It also shows that presidential candidate Matthew Wallace donated only $40 — a huge reduction from the $690 in contributions listed in the original report.
“Chrysten Crockett didn’t contribute the $500 at all,” Kelley said. “It came from Matt.… He was buying everything. Nobody else contributed.”
Kelley said almost all the money for the campaign came from Wallace — except for a contribution from Kelley of about $150 for a snow cone machine and a $1,400 payment for the party’s T-shirts, which Kelley’s roommate paid for with his credit card. His roommate still has not been reimbursed, he said.
The Board of Elections found a second violation in the T-shirt sale, Jackson said. The election rules prohibit candidates from giving out anything worth more than $2, but FACE reported that it sold its shirts at a $3.04 loss, Jackson said.
Kelley said that might not be correct, either.
“Toward the end of the campaign, we just started handing (T-shirts) out, giving them away,” he said. “Matt was trying to kind of dance around it in the financial reports.”
Besides the outstanding $1,400 T-shirt debt, which Kelley said he and Wallace are trying to cover, FACE still has not paid a $225 fine for negative campaigning.
“I don’t think we’re gonna pay it,” Kelley said, adding that he is not sure what repercussions that would have.
Outgoing Student Senate President Jesse Neader said senate might not have any options if the fine isn’t paid because FACE used one of Wallace’s personal bank accounts for its finances. Most parties use their OU student organization accounts, which can be frozen if a fine is unpaid.
“Because it’s in a private account, we can’t track their expenses,” Neader said. “His books are all messed up. They are the most disheveled books I’ve ever seen. … I don’t think that we’re ever going to be able to uncover the real expenses.”
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