Election Pages
ASG Election Commission Letter
Dear Northwestern Undergraduate Student Body,
An email from Muhammad “Mo” Safdari was sent out to a number of students yesterday, and was forwarded to many listservs across campus. This email has been found in violation of Election Guidelines, and because Muhammad Safdari has been working on the campaign of Mike McGee and Tommy Smithburg, a campaign violation has been filed against the campaign of Mike McGee and Tommy Smithburg.
The email that Muhammad Safdari sent had several issues of slander, libel, and defamation. The problems with the email are as follows:
1. Misrepresenting "illegality" of laptops. Although voting booths were deemed unacceptable by the Election Commission, the clarification of "mobile" voting booths (as in, laptops going around door-to-door), was not made absolutely clear until approximately 1:30pm on Wednesday, April 15, 2009.
2. Slander/Libel against Bill Pulte. This includes claiming that Bill arranged for a "fake email" to be sent out by A&O and Mayfest. These claims are unsubstantiated. Additionally, claiming that Bill "hacked the voting site", again unsubstantiated and, as far as anyone knows, completely false.
3. Defaming ASG and the Election Commission. Claiming that an "insider on the Election Commission" was disclosing internal private information. This is untrue.
4. Claiming that chalking in Evanston is a violation of Evanston law. It's not.
5. Unsubstantiated claims about Bill and the University's decisions about a "fall Dillo Day". The University has not made any such decision.
6. False defamatory claims of Neal Sales-Griffin working on a campaign. Neal has been doing no such things.
7. Additional libel against Bill Pulte including derogatory names.
Because Safdari is working with McGee, this is being considered an election violation. All campaigns need to take responsibility for their members. Although McGee did not specifically endorse this message, by Muhammad sending it out on behalf of McGee's campaign, it thus is considered a campaign violation.
The Election Commission is a fair and unbiased body of students elected by the ASG Senate. We endorse no candidates in particular, and we encourage voters to make informed decisions about the candidates. Links to candidate sites may be found at http://asg.northwestern.edu/elections/ .
Sincerely,
The Election Commission
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