March 30, 1995
The results of the Associated Students elections are indefinitely stalled until the elections committee can sort out 18 grievances ranging from anti-Zionist threats made to Student Struggle members to candidates sharing chips and soda with some students.
An unofficial vote count shows Struggle's candidate Kenyan McCarthy as the presidential winner with 565 votes, beating USM's Troy Buckner-Nkrumah, who got 494 votes. Struggle's vice presidential candidate Augustine Nevarez, received 621 votes over USM's vice presidential candidate Marisol Ruiz, who received 570 votes.
Three of the committee's five members were present at a 40 minute meeting Monday but no decisions were made because one member left to attend class, rendering the committee powerless to vote on any issues due to a lack of quorum.
USM is the Progressive Coalition's slate. PC slates have controlled the student government almost consistently for the past decade, so their defeat by Struggle was a major upset.
A discussion continued after the meeting was closed, centering on two grievances filed against USM presidential candidate Buckner-Nkrumah. Two separate students filed the grievances, claiming that Buckner-Nkrumah approached them while they were campaigning in Malcolm X Plaza and made violent threats toward them, believing they were Zionist.
Of the remaining 16 grievances, 10 were filed against the Struggle slate, mostly by USM members.
McCarthy said these grievances are just designed to stall the election process. "AS has been in control for a long time, they made these (election) rules. We had to play by their rules, and we did, and we won. It's time for them to let go and listen to the voters," he said.
The grievances against Struggle address alleged illegal campaigning, such as distributing campaign material within a 25 foot radius of the polls and holding an illegal "forum" at Mary Ward Hall, in violation of section 17B, according to Navarro.
A student who filed one of the two grievances regarding the forum said in the meeting that there were "stacks of Student Struggle propaganda" at the event in the Cantina at Mary Ward Hall, and election issues were being discussed.
McCarthy, in an earlier Golden Gater article, said there was no illegal forum but there was a social. "All we did was eat some cookies and chips and drink some soda." At Monday's meeting McCarthy repeated his position. "There absolutely was no forum."
These two grievances will be referred to the legislature because the election committee was unable to resolve them within 15 days, according to Steve Navarro, elections committee chair.
Another five of the grievances are against the elections committee itself, mostly for typographical errors on the ballots. According to the elections code, any grievances concerning an election committee member must be filed with the AS Rules committee chair. But there is no current chair because the former chair, Jason "Quddus" Archie, is in prison until Aug. 21 for violating his parole, and no vice chair was ever appointed.
"It's probably sitting in his mailbox and I don't have the power to enter his mailbox to find out," Navarro said when asked by a student what was happening with the grievance he filed against the committee.
Navarro said the legislature will probably have to handle the rest of the grievances.
"We can suggest that maybe we don't have the power to deal with the grievances and that maybe people should take them to a higher level," he said.
The speaker of the legislature, Laurie Quillopo, was unavailable for comment.