W. Morris Fierman
Hours before the general election ballots for the Bucknell Student Government (BSG) became available online to University students, three candidates were disqualified from the race by the BSG Executive Board.
The former candidates Tim Jim Kim ’16, Gabby Derosa ’16 and Tim Delaney ’16 were notified that they had been disqualified for the second time late on April 16 for violating campaigning regulations and using the trademarked Bucknell Bison logo in a video posted to the class of 2016 Facebook page.
Kim was running for the position of president of next year’s sophomore class, Derosa for vice president and Delaney for treasurer.
The three had been disqualified in another incident on April 14 after being accused of a violation for campaign fliers posted above the dish conveyor belt in the Bostwick Cafeteria, originally labeled a violation of the rules by the BSG Executive Board. The decision was rescinded by the BSG Executive Board after they met for an appeals process and argued their case, claiming that the rules were not explicit in banning fliers at that location.
“We didn’t think this was a violation, so we presented them with our side,” said Kim, who brought with him a petition that included the signatures of over 350 students in support of the three candidates.
The executive board said in an interview soon after the meeting that the petition, though a reassuring signal of student’s interest in the student government, had nothing to do with their decision, which was made after concluding that the rules in question were unclear.
Later that afternoon and soon after they had been notified that they were back on the ballot, three other first-year candidates arrived at the office of the faculty advisor to the student government, Associate Dean of Students Kari Conrad, bearing the video Kim, Derosa and Delaney had posted to Facebook that included the trademarked logo, asking that the board again disqualify the candidates.
The three were not the only disqualified from the ballot this year. Emma Miller ’16, who was running for the position of treasurer, was notified that her name would be removed from the ballot after she posted campaign posters to the Elaine Langone Center bulletin boards, another violation of campaigning rules.
BSG President Loren Jablon ’15 said that these instances were the first in recent memory that the BSG Executive Board had moved to disqualify candidates from a general election ballot. Especially among a first-year class, “there’s never been an election this cutthroat before,” Jablon said.
Kim, who currently serves as vice president of the first-year class, was disappointed with the way the election turned out. Speaking of the candidates that reported the video to Conrad, Kim said that “they really went out of their way to scour our campaign material and find something that was against the rules.”
As for the BSG Executive Board that disqualified them for the second time, “their hands were tied,” Kim said.