USG throws out complaint filed against presidential ticket


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The Undergraduate Student Government Elections Commission decided the Michaela & Meagan presidential ticket did not violate the Elections Code after holding a hearing Monday, according to the Elections Code infraction decision. The vote was unanimous.

Allegra Gutierrez, USG assistant director of graphics, filed the complaint against vice presidential candidate Meagan Lane. According to the infraction decision, she claimed presidential candidate Michaela Murphy and Lane “knowingly posted on their website” that students can visit them in the USG office for more information about their campaign.

This allegedly violated Article XIII in the USG Elections Code. According to Elections Code XIII.A.2., “No campaign planning or related activities may occur within the USG office.” According to Senior Director of Communications Fern Leon-Ramos, the USG office is meant to be a non-partisan space, so no campaign-related discussion should be held in the office.

Murphy described the incident as an “oversight on our part,” and said the information was online for no more than 24 hours.

“When we were setting up the website, … you have to put in your place of business,” Murphy said. “We had just listed TCC 224 [the USG office] because that was an address that we could use. It wound up popping up on our contact page. Before it was brought to our attention, we didn’t realize that it could be interpreted as us encouraging students to come to the USG office during our senatorial office hours to talk to us about campaign-related discussion, which is absolutely something neither of us would have encouraged.”

According to Leon-Ramos, Lane had Sen. Manda Bwerevu stand as her witness at the hearing. Bwerevu supported Lane and affirmed that no one came into the USG office to talk to Murphy and Lane about their campaign.

Therefore, since the Elections Commission found that a violation of the Elections Code had not occurred, the commission unanimously voted to not impose sanctions on the Michaela & Meagan presidential ticket.

“It was just a mistake on [Murphy and Lane’s] end, but it only happened digitally,” Leon-Ramos said. “No one actually followed through, and they didn’t actually end up talking about their campaign in their office. They were asked to take it off the website, and it was already taken off the website at that point.”

Allegra Gutierrez did not respond to request for comment by time of publication.