The CUSG election tribunal took place on Friday. Here’s a rundown of what occurred.
The tribunal found the preliminary winners of the election, Inspire, guilty of a charge regarding bribery and not guilty of a charge regarding intimidation. The runners up, Unity, were found guilty of witness tampering. Both have an opportunity to appeal this decision.
The infraction tribunal took place on Friday, April 15 at Wolf Law building’s Carrigan Courtroom to hear infraction cases that were filed against the Inspire ticket by the Unity ticket who came in second place by a margin of less than 100 votes. The Inspire ticket consists of Ben Lansbury and Milan Enayat as tri-executive candidates with Julia Brehm and Nick Monroy as representative candidates. The Unity ticket consists of Rachel Hill, Lucie Nyugen, and Chloe Nicklas as tri-executive candidates with Christine Nyugen, Sally Webster and Peter Goettler as representative candidates.
It is unknown why but the Amplify ticket rescinded their case against Inspire.
The tribunal consisted of three justices from CUSG’s judicial branch: deputy chief justice Elizabeth Gilbert who presided over the tribunal, justice Panepinto, and justice Christie Jr..
The two infraction cases against the Inspire ticket consisted of intimidation and bribery. The bribery case, Rachel Hill vs Inspire, is a violation of section 702.5 of the CUSG Election Code and the intimidation case, Chloe Nicklas vs Inspire, is violation of section 703.3.
CASE 1: Rachel Hill versus Inspire
The first case presented in the tribunal was Rachel Hill versus Inspire. In the infraction document submitted to the tribunal, the offense listed by Rachel against Inspire is, “bribery, more specifically, offering rewards to students for promoting items/materials that have the ability to directly influence others to vote a certain way.” They listed screenshots for the evidence. (See images below).
According to section 702.5 of the election code, bribery is defined as, ” “Bribing any voter or group of voters. Bribery is defined as a prize, reward, gift, or favor given or promised in order to influence another to vote for or against a particular candidate or ticket.” It is a 12 point violation, meaning if Inspire was found guilty of this charge, they would be disqualified.
On March 30, Julia Brehm, a representative candidate for the Inspire ticket and vice president of programming for the Delta Gamma sorority, sent out a text message in her sorority group chat that offered members five Greek house points for reposting an Instagram post from the Inspire ticket’s Instagram page. The post in question was advertising a Multicultural Awareness Event being held at the Sigma Nu fraternity house .
On April 4, Brehm texted in the same group chat offering girls five more points if they handed out flyers for the Inspire ticket (See images).
Brehm believed that girls reposting for the multicultural event would help “girls to be more included, encourage them to incorporate diversity and inclusion into their active participation into community,” she stated during her testimony.
During cross examination, Unity’s co-counselor Rachel Pogue asked Brehm if flyers are typically used to influence voters to which Brehm answered “yes.” Pogue proceeded to ask Brehm if she offered girls points to repost an image from Inspire’s official Instagram campaign page. Brehm responded “yes.” Finally, Pogue asked if a campaign or ticket would have an Instagram account in order to influence students to vote. Brehm replied “yes” but she believed that the post was promoting a multicultural event instead of campaigning for the Inspire ticket.
According to Miri Fraser, president of the Delta Gamma sorority, points are used to encourage participation for community, campus and sorority events. Points are required to partake in important sorority events such as formals.
Jemil Kassahun, a first-year law student at CU who also serves as Finance Board co-chair within CUSG, represented Inspire on this particular allegation. Inspire claims that they offered rewards to students to campaign for their tickets by handing out flyers or reposting on social media and it is not the same as bribing a student which could influence their or other votes.
“Points were promised, however, nowhere is there any evidence of points being promised specifically for a vote,” Kassahun stated.
Kassahun further stated that the bribery charge could only stand if the bribe was in direct exchange for a vote. They claim that handing out flyers and reposting on social media are considered “normal campaign materials.”
He added that the Unity ticket’s allegation is an over expanded interpretation of the election code. In his closing statement, he concluded by emphasizing the precedent the tribunal’s decision is able to set.
However, Unity claimed that asking people to repost their campaign materials on their social media and asking people to give out flyers of a ticket is considered influence.
“The key word in this case is influence. The term influence is broad, and it’s broad for a reason. Because any prize, reward, gift or favor given or promised to sway the vote of another counts as influencing a vote,” Hill said. “Influence doesn’t mean that they had to be bribed to cast a vote. Influence means that they were influenced in favor of one ticket over another. Having sorority members bribe other sorority members with points in favor of one ticket over another is an influence.”
In the concluding statement for Unity, Pogue stated, the Inspire ticket “didn’t inspire, they influenced.”
Ultimately, the infraction tribunal found Inspire guilty of this violation.
CASE 2: Chloe Nicklas versus Inspire
On the second infraction allegation, the Unity ticket claimed that the Inspire ticket violated section 703.3 of the Election Code. This is classified as an eight point violation. Unity alleged that Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) asked their current pledges to hand out flyers, message members listed in the redbook- provides all current members names and numbers- to vote for the Inspire ticket. The offense listed in the official complaint form filed against Inspire by the Unity ticket stated, “The Inspire Ticket has used “Intimidating, impeding , [and] threatening… [actions] against voters who are made up of pledges to the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. We are submitting two counts of explicit intimidation as we have two witnesses who are submitting testimonies.”
The Unity ticket’s allegation is that Michael Durr, the campaign manager of the Inspire ticket positioned himself “as an authoritative figure to intimidate, impede and threaten pledges.” Durr has also previously served as president of the fraternity in question (TKE) as well as president of IFC on the Hill.
The Unity ticket submitted multiple screenshots and an audio recording of a pledge in the TKE fraternity as their evidence. They also had pledges come in as witnesses.
During the tribunal, TKE pledge Vice President Allen Koncsik stated, “I definitely felt as if we lost… [or] didn’t help [Durr] the way he wanted us to, he definitely would have said something about it to our hegemon or somebody up there. If we did not help him at all, probably some sort of punishment was going to happen like a PT [pledge training].”
The Inspire ticket wrote in their respondent’s brief that since Michel Durr is the former president (and not the current president) he therefore has no authority or involvement in the disciplinary process of TKE. They stated, “Mr. Durr never engaged in any conduct or language that could be considered intimidating, interfering, threatening or retaliatory.”
As their witnesses, Inspire included members from the TKE executive board such as: Bradford Rawlings, the former TKE president, Fen Colston, Current TKE president, Sam Johnson, current TKE risk manager, Harry Hinkle, current TKE treasurer, and Jack Jevens, current TKE new member educator.
Rawlings further explained that Durr’s former position as President does not give him any added influence within the fraternity by commenting, \“most brothers have respect from other brothers and the new members and I would say my respect [as former president] is equivalent to all other brothers.”
During Adam Wenzlaffs’, Inspire’s co-counselor cross examination he requested to speak to the TKE pledge President Riley White about the lack of consequences pledges faced for not participating in handing out flyers for the Inspire Ticket. “So Mr. White, did you ever object to any of the activities that Mr. Durr requested of you?” White responded, “No I did not.” Wenzlaff further asked if any other pledge brothers refused to participate. White said, “no.”
Pogues’ closing statement highlights how pledges White and Koncsik felt ”intimidated by Michael Durr and Inspire campaign,” Unity had submitted multiple screenshots of Durr expecting pledges to help hand out flyers and promote the Inspire ticket and two pledges came forward to express how they believed there would be consequences if they did not comply to these requests. In Pogue’s eyes this is “ a textbook intimidation.”
In addition, Pogue stated how Durr managed to “get three … extremely busy exec members to come testify on his behalf on a Friday night. To me, that indicates that he has some influence within the chapter.”
Again, her final thoughts were“they didn’t Inspire they intimidated.”
In his concluding statement, Inspire highlighted that Unity failed to present substantial evidence of “intimidation, impeding, threatening or retaliation, except in their own minds and the minds of the pledges without any excess outside forces.” Wenzlaff said. they (Unity) have responded similarly to most of the politicians throughout history from Marcus Junius Brutus’s to Donald J. Trump and that is by being a sore loser”
The infraction tribunal did not find Inspire guilty of this violation. Therefore concluding that Michael Durr did not intimidate pledges or members of the TKE fraternity into campaigning for Inspire.
To conclude, the tribunal found Inspire guilty of section 702.5 of the CUSG election code in a 2-1 decision which is a 12 point violation, resulting in the disqualification of the entire ticket including the representative candidates. The Inspire ticket has the opportunity to file an appeal in CUSG’s appellate court.
The tribunal did not find Inspire guilty of the second charge, section 703.3 of the CUSG election code in a 3-0 unanimous decision.
Post tribunal
After the tribunal Friday night, witnesses brought forth by Unity emailed deputy chief justice Elizabeth Gilbert stating that their testimony was “very inaccurate” and “very instructed.”
On April 16, the CUSG tribunal published its rulings on the two infraction cases against the Inspire ticket. The tribunal found Inspire not guilty of violating section 703.3, the second allegation made against them.
However, the tribunal did find Inspire guilty of violating section 702.5 of the election code, subsequently disqualifying the entire ticket..
But, the court stated that they also found Unity guilty of violating Section 1006.5 and Chapter 7, Section 702.3 of the Election Code.
Election Code’s Section 1006.5 which states, “Tickets and candidates are responsible for the actions and behavior of their witnesses and other agents during the Infraction.”
Chapter 7, Section 702.3 of the code which states, “Perjury, destroying evidence, tampering with evidence or witnesses, or knowingly providing false information, evidence, or testimony to the Election Commission or the Appellate Court in a way that substantially affects the outcome or integrity of the electoral or judicial processes.”
This infraction is worth 12 points, meaning the Unity ticket is currently considered disqualified.
However, the tribunal states that there will be an investigation to “determine to what extent witness testimony violated Chapter 7, Section 702, Subsection 3.”
Going forward
Currently, Inspire and Unity are both considered disqualified which makes the Amplify ticket, who received 492 votes, the assumed winners of the election.
However, Inspire and Unity were given 48 hours after receiving the court’s rulings to file an appeal to the appellate court of CUSG.
The final statements of the tribunal court were, “The provision of due process of law and opportunity for all parties to respond to this charge is procedurally evident in the appeals process outlined in the Election Code, if they wish to take such action.”
The appellate court hearings are not open to the public.
The Bold has reached out to Amplify, Inspire, and Unity for comments but none were willing to provide statements at this time.
The Bold will continue to monitor updates from the appellate court and release subsequent articles with finalizations of this year’s CUSG elections in the coming days.
Editor’s Note: One of the contributing reporters on this story, Suvu Singh is a former CUSG member. Though Singh’s formal relationship with CUSG ended in December 2021, The Bold felt it was best to disclose this information as we value transparency and believe our readers do as well.
