Update: The ASUO Elections board has decided to deem Turner’s petition valid.
Of the 20 signatures that were on Henry Turner’s petition allowing him to run for the Student Planning and Construction Committee in the ASUO elections, 12 of the signatures were put on the document before Turner’s, or anyone else’s, name was on the petition.
Turner, who was running on ASUO presidential candidate Ben Bowman’s Mighty Oregon slate, will not be allowed to run for the position because the deadline to collect signatures has now passed.
The 12 people who signed the petition before there was a name attached were Alex Titus, Joe Schmitt, Dan Nettler, Marshall Kosloff, Linnea Havener, Taylor Allison, Evan Roth, Nicholas Sanchez, Megean Gleason, Chase Benton, Eliza Hallett and Kyle Crair.
The 12 invalidated signatures are a violation of section 3.4 of the ASUO Election Rules which states that: “All signatures for a candidacy petition must be gathered on the candidacy petition form, in person, by the candidate, as provided by the ASUO Office Assistants or the ASUO Elections Board.”
“The position doesn’t require signatures, but if they are submitted as part of his petition, then he is liable for their validity,” ASUO Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen said. “(Turner) signed a form saying that this was all valid. He’s responsible for the actions of his affiliates and his employees.”
“I’d been loosely involved with the campaign up to this point. I really wasn’t super involved with it before the position,” Turner said. “I got a call from Marshall Kosloff and he asked me to come the EMU. When I got there he said that the [Student Planning and Construction Committee] was open and asked if I wanted to run for it and I said sure. I was just presented with the document and they submitted it. I wasn’t familiar with the rules at all, and I didn’t know that it was a violation.”
Kosloff, Titus and Roth were among the invalid signatures and were recently mentioned in a grievance that was filed by ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis against ASUO presidential candidate Ben Bowman and his executive team. Allison, who is one of Bowman’s vice presidential running mates, also signed the petition before a name was attached.
Allison said that she wasn’t sure if she was signing an unnamed candidate petition.
“Throughout the last couple of days I’ve been signing a ton of petitions for candidates on my slate,” Allison said.
Ehlen believes that Kosloff intentionally misled the board, and that since he recruited the candidate, Kosloff carries most of the blame. Kosloff doesn’t agree.
Kosloff resigned from Bowman’s campaign on March 17, but before he resigned he was in charge of finding a candidate for the SPCC position. At the time he was collecting the signatures, Kosloff said that he was unaware that this was a violation.
“Up until Friday we didn’t have anyone for the SPCC seat and we didn’t even know the seat was something we needed to fill until two days beforehand,” Kosloff said. “There’s no conspiracy. I just simply didn’t know the election rules.”
Crair is vice president of finance for the Delta Upsilon fraternity and during a meeting with Kosloff, Roth and DU President Grayson McCormick, Kosloff brought out the petition and asked Crair if he wanted to sign it.
“This is the first exposure I’ve had with the ASUO or anything like this, so I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time,” Crair said. “It was obviously not an intelligent move on my part to sign without reading it beforehand, but it was presented as if it was just one of those petitions that needs to get a thousand signatures on it.”
Late Wednesday night, the ASUO Elections board decided to not rule Turner’s petition invalid.
“We decided that we won’t rule Turner’s petition invalid because signatures were not required and he was completely unaware of the rules at the point in which he signed the sheet,” Ehlen said.
Alexandra Wallachy contributed to this post.
Follow Craig Garcia and Alexandra Wallachy @CraiGarcia and @wall2wallachy