On March 19, in an emergency meeting led by Senate Vice President Dana Hamdan, the Elections Committee disqualified Zak Wear, Matt Clausen, Ian Ferguson, Alex Knox, and Zach Daw from running for Community Senate president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary in the 2009-2010 executive election. The disqualification resulted from events that the committee interpreted as showing “disrespect towards an opposing ticket”-a by-laws infraction.
The events began officially three days prior to the Elections Committee meeting, on March 16, when Wear, Clausen, Knox, and Daw’s petition to run for executive council was denied by Hamdan. The ticket was originally deemed ineligible because Wear did not meet the minimum 2.5 GPA presidential requirement. Members attempted to re-form the ticket, but did not meet the 2 p.m. deadline for re-filing.
The elections guidelines require the name and signatures of all ticket members on the petitions for candidacy to be turned into the Founders Hall Information desk by 2 p.m.
According to Wear, the requirements disqualifying his ticket should also be applied to his opponents. Ferguson – still listed as a member of an opposing ticket – was out of town and gave phone verification. His signature was not provided until 2:45 p.m. In his petition brought to the March 18 Senate meeting, Wear hoped to “find a consistent attitude in addressing the rules,” and therefore disqualify Nancy Klosteridis, Trevor Corning, Ian Ferguson, and Hannah Kennedy’s ticket from participating in the election.
Without an elections committee formed at this point, Hamdan allowed Senate to act as the elections committee. Senate chose to accept Klosteridis’s ticket and extended the deadline to 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 19, for Wear to form another ticket.
Later that night, at 12:21 a.m. Wear, Daw, Knox, and Ferguson turned in a petition with their signatures. Ferguson submitted his name for the new ticket while he was still running for treasurer on Klosteridis’s ticket.
At 1:18 a.m. a petition was turned in with Jordan Auleb as the treasurer for Klosteridis’s ticket. At 8:42 a.m. Wear’s ticket turned in a second petition with Clausen’s signature instead of Ferguson’s.
In order to come to a decision, the Senate Elections Committee held an emergency meeting at 7 p.m. The attendees consisted of members from all tickets, Senate Faculty Advisor Maria Rosales, members of the steering committee, and attendees of the March 18 Senate meeting.
“I think the meeting went really well,” said Hamdan. “Being the chair of the committee, I tried to run it in a similar manner as a Quaker meeting, but I also wanted it to have more structure like we do in judicial board meetings.”
The meeting opened with statements recalling relevant events from the perspectives of the two tickets involved, as well as Ferguson.
“I allowed both tickets to give their sides of the story,” said Hamdan. “We tried to avoid as much as possible the things that we could not prove. This led the board to make the right decision in disqualifying the tickets.”
Ferguson read aloud a prepared statement expressing his remorse.
“I apologize to the student body as a whole for my role in creating, supporting and furthering the current electoral crisis the community now faces,” he read.
Ferguson responded to a question regarding his intention when switching tickets.
“Outwardly, I admit, it appears to be a move of ambition and self-betterment,” said Ferguson. “I feel somewhat at fault for accepting, knowing what I was committing to. However, I thought my vision aligned more with (Wear’s) ticket.”
Wear described the various states of his ticket after the meeting.
“Ian approached our ticket at 10:30 p.m. and we began a discussion where he wanted to take the spot of president. I stood aside because it was a conflict of interest,” said Wear. “I requested that we sign two configurations of the ticket. Conditions were I would stand aside and if other members consented to allowing Ian on the ticket I would go ahead with it.”
Wear and Knox explained that soon after they turned in the petition with Ferguson’s signature they discussed the ethics and legitimacy of allowing this decision to take place.
“We changed our minds because when I stood aside, the conversation wasn’t finished. There was not unity. People didn’t feel good (about the decision to add Ian to our ticket) so I started talking about ethics,” said Wear in a later interview. “We realized that it’s one thing that Ian hates being on Nancy’s ticket and something different to let him on ours. If Ian’s version of the paper had been turned in at 8:45 I would have functioned differently. But since the deadline hadn’t passed I waited until after the paper was turned in before I felt free to talk.”
Zach Daw also stood aside during the decision-making process, a choice that he elaborated on in a later interview.
“This was all Zak and Matt, not Alex,” said Daw. “He and I were trying to do what it took to be on the ballot legitimately. And we could have, had we not brought Ian on. They (Zak, Matt, and Ian) were trying to play big-time politics in a small-time setting.”
At this point in the meeting, an interview with Matt Clausen by The Guilfordian surfaced as evidence contradicting their statements. In the previous interview, Clausen admitted that his ticket tried to “rig the election” and had previous meetings with Ferguson discussing his abandonment of Nancy’s ticket.
In a later interview Clausen said:
“I take the blame in regards to Ian. It was a consensus deal and the other three members consented excluding Zak Wear. I let my own personal distractions get to me. I was willing to let anything help us win. I made a calculated political decision I really shouldn’t have made and because of that decision three very good reputations were thrown in the mud.”