Charges filed against 44 of 56 UA candidates

An NEC hearing tonight will determine the charges' validity. Forty-four candidates running in the Undergraduate Assembly election were charged with violations of the Fair Practices Code, according to a Nominations and Elections Committee listing. The candidates will be formally charged at the FPC hearing tonight, when the NEC will rule on the charges and the election results will be announced. The charges against all but five of the 44 allege a violation of Article 5, Section C, which reads, "posters and any other campaign materials may be placed in any position freely accessible to all candidates." The alleged violations -- noted on the NEC list as either "UA e-mail" or "postering in fraternity houses" -- stem from campaigning using venues that weren't accessible to all the candidates. UA candidate and College junior Paul Welfer said he found the incumbent 23 candidates in violation of the article because they were listed on an e-mail UA candidate and College junior Larry Kamin sent to student leaders urging them to vote for incumbents. Kamin used the UA's account to send the e-mail. "The idea of a government or any agency representing that government, with or without the government's knowledge, campaigning for its politicians smacks in the face of basic democratic principles," Welfer's charges read. He added that the e-mail gave the incumbents an unfair advantage, and that if it weren't for the politics in the NEC, the election would probably be thrown out. "It galls me that some of the incumbents are only worried about the amount of time they will spend at [tonight's hearing]," he said. Kamin insisted that the e-mail was neither a breech of the UA constitution or the FPC, and that the UA Steering Committee -- not he alone -- decided to send the e-mail. "The UA bylaws enable the Steering Committee to act for the body when they are not in session," he explained. Kamin said he wasn't worried the charges would invalidate the results. "I'll probably bring popcorn to the meeting [tonight]," he said. But other incumbents said they were unfairly charged because they did not consent to the e-mail. And Wharton junior Steve Schorr -- UA treasurer and member of the Steering Committee -- said he would not have agreed to sending the e-mail if he had known it would come from the UA account. College junior Fernando Henriquez filed charges against 27 candidates due to "a poster seen in fraternity houses" that listed their names, along with their Greek chapter affiliation. Henriquez's charge added that "there is videotaped evidence by UTV13." In wake of the current publicity of a "Greek slate," UA candidates and IFC members denied any plan to advertise in Greek residences. UA incumbent and Wharton freshman Dan Kryzanowski, a Pi Kappa Phi pledge, said the charge was "ridiculous." "You can't control where another fraternity puts your name," he said. "All I can say is my fraternity did nothing of the sort to promote Greeks. It's the outside sources that seem like they are fucking things up." UA candidate and College junior Aaron Kotok, InterFraternity Council vice president for the 21st Century Plan, also denied being guilty of the charge, saying the problem lay with the FPC definitions. "Whoever put these posters up is accused of being a surrogate for Greek candidates," the Pi Kappa Phi brother said. "But if they act without our knowledge, they can't be a surrogate." And UA candidate and College junior Adam Etra, a Zeta Beta Tau brother, said he didn't "even know what [the charges] meant." College junior Josh Rockoff also pressed charges against the NEC for "failure to contact students studying abroad with absentee ballots or notification of the elections?" Rockoff, a UA member in the fall, is now abroad. And six candidates were charged for their failure to file a spending form, as required by the FPC.