In a Student Government presidential election so controversial that it received coverage from the Tampa Bay Times, trying to keep up with who’s in and who’s out has been nearly impossible. But where the Times story focuses primarily on a candidate’s absence of undergarments, The Crow’s Nest presents the need-to-know details of the election process.
We sifted through the documents submitted to and produced by the SG Supreme Court over the last month to break down each writ, brief, motion and request in terms that don’t require a law degree to understand.
Suspension of election results
Elections were held March 4 though 7. Since the Election Rules Commission had not yet notified candidates of their violations on March 6, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sean Ericson suspected the results would be skewed so he suspended them until further notice. This meant that even though results would be counted, they would not be certified or finalized.
Grievance reports
On March 7, three hours after polls closed, the ERC released grievance reports that assessed each party’s campaign violations. SG rules state that candidates must be made aware of their violations while the election is ongoing. Because the ERC failed to meet this requirement, the validity of the grievance reports was questioned.
Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus were assessed violation points for bribery, plagiarism, the illegal use of student activity and service fees, and failure to put the election title and year on campaign material. The violations totaled 10 points — just enough to disqualify them from the race.
The ERC assessed two points to the Richards and Iuliucci, their only infraction being a failure to include the election year and title on campaign signs.
The preliminary results
On March 8, the day after polls closed, the ERC released preliminary results placing Mark Lombardi-Nelson and Christa Hegedus at 233 votes and Jimmy Richards and Jordan Iuliucci at 125 votes. Since the Supreme Court put a suspension on the results the day before, they were not certified and no winner was declared.
Retraction of grievance reports
A day later, the ERC retracted the grievance reports, re-qualifying the Lombardi-Nelson/Hegedus ticket. Vincent de Cosmo, head of the ERC, admitted his “malpractice” and said Matt Morrin, director of Student Life and Engagement, strongly encouraged the retraction.
Request for trial
On March 15, Richards requested a Supreme Court trial to decide whether the alleged campaign violations were valid. The trial would have placed Richards against de Cosmo. Richards would have argued that regardless of the ERC’s error, campaign violations did occur and points should be assessed. Though de Cosmo admitted to breaking rules, he still believed the points he assessed were valid and would have had no argument for Richards.
Even though no issue existed between plaintiff and defendant, the court scheduled the trial for April 5.
Amicus curiae brief
Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus submitted an amicus curiae — the legal term for something filed with the court by someone who is not a party in the case — on March 28. The brief asked the court to dismiss the case and rebutted each violation charged by the ERC. According to Ericson, the court can only review motions for dismissal that come from the parties involved in a case, meaning the brief did not have the power to the dismiss the trial and could only be used as evidence.
Motion in Limine
In response to the amicus curiae, Richards and Iuliucci submitted for a motion in limine — a request that certain evidence not be used in a trial — claiming the amicus brief “defies logic.” The motion asked that the court not use the information presented in the amicus as evidence during the trial. The court partially approved the request.
Petition for summary judgment
Richards later submitted a petition for summary judgment, which allowed the court to decide if his campaign was harmed by the ERC’s misconduct without holding a full trial. Because there was no factual conflict between Richards and the ERC, a trial was deemed unnecessary.
The court made a summary judgment stating, “If the ERC assessed the points correctly, it is possible the opposing candidate would have been disqualified, resulting in the plaintiff winning the election by default.” The judgment, therefore, ruled in favor of Richards. The court dismissed the trial and scheduled a hearing in its place that would decide whether the allegations made against the Lombardi-Nelson campaign were legitimate.
The hearing
On April 5, Lombardi-Nelson and Hegedus were given five minutes to rebut the alleged violations that disqualified them from the race, but evidence was limited to evidence that had already been submitted. No new arguments the two presented would be considered, Ericson said.
The court upheld most of the points assessed to the campaign, but did not release official numbers. It has until April 12 to do so. Lombardi-Nelson said “the game’s not over,” and said he had plans to appeal to Regional Associate Vice Chancellor Julie Wong next.
More information about the hearing is available here.
The Tampa Bay Times article
An article written about the election by Lisa Gartner of the Tampa Bay Times raised some contempt among students involved in the election process after it was released on the Times’ website on April 5. In the article, titled “On this USF campus, all’s fair in love and politics,” Garter references Hegedus’ decision to not wear a bra, and the strife it caused with one-time running mate Iuliucci.
“They really emphasized bras… I didn’t think it had anything to do with what’s happening?” Richards wrote in an open forum for USFSP students on Facebook. “It was absolutely terrible.”
A handful of other students expressed concern about the purpose of the article. Some said they thought it was funny. Hegedus seemed not to think so.
“[Gartner] will come back to USFSP and try to create another article,” she wrote in the forum. “I warn you to not speak to her due to her lack of professionalism in writing.”
