Even before the race for next year’s Columbia College Student Council positions officially began Thursday night, allegations of rule-breaking had already begun between the two candidates for council president.
Thursday morning, contender Alidad Damooei, CC ’09 and a CCSC vice president, lodged a rules violation form against the competing ticket of George Krebs, CC ’09 and the junior class president.
According to Damooie, a recent e-mail that Adil Ahmed, CC ’09 and the candidate for policy VP on Krebs’ ticket, sent to various student leaders amounted to illegal campaigning. In the e-mail, which was posted on Bwog, Ahmed noted his past involvement with student groups and appealed to them to discuss their concerns.
While Ahmed didn’t mention platform points or seek endorsements—which would explicitly breach election rules—the board will have to decide whether he violated Section 4, Article E, which states, “Candidates or supporters may not advance their candidacy or the candidacy of any other candidate or party in the election prior to the start of the campaigning period,” which is 9 a.m. on March 25. However, candidates are allowed to reach out to students to gather and consider their ideas.
“We’ve been checking everything we’ve been doing to make sure there hasn’t been a rules violation,” Damooei said, pointing out that his ticket postponed its campaign video when the elections board said that it was against the rules. “It’s not fair for us to have our hands tied, and for them to have free rein.”
Ahmed has 18 hours to file a rebuttal, but he said Thursday that he didn’t know what the protocol was because the elections board had yet to contact him. He said that he did, however, receive an e-mail containing Damooei’s complaint and that he planned to refute the charges.
“I was surprised he took that shot—I thought we were on the same page,” Ahmed said, adding that he rejected Damooei’s request at the end of last semester to join his ticket as vice president for communications.
As the candidates officially submitted election forms in advance of the Thursday night deadline, details about each ticket emerged.
Krebs will run on the Experience Columbia ticket with Laura Doan, CC ’09, as vice president for funding, Ian Solsky, CC ’09, as vice president for communications, and Robyn Burgess, CC ’10, as vice president for campus life.
On Damooei’s Connect Columbia party are Jennifer Choi, CC ’09, for vice president for funding, Donna Desilus, CC ’09, for vice president for policy, Cliff Massey, CC ’10, for vice president for campus life, and Veronica Colon, CC ’10, for vice president for communications.
What came as something of a surprise was the candidacy of Colin Drummond, CC ’09, for CCSC senior class president with Jason Patinkin, CC ’09, as his vice president and Colin Felsman, CC ’09, as a representative, though Felsman is currently studying abroad. Drummond considered running against Damooei and Krebs, but said that class council was ultimately “more feasible.”
He will vie for the spot against Mark Johnson, CC ’09, who is running with Mallory Carr, CC ’09, as his vice president and Brandon Shulman, Heather Oh, and Zahrah Taufique, all CC ’09, as representatives.
The two other class councils will go uncontested. AJ Pascua and Sue Yang are running unopposed for junior class president and vice president, respectively, and their representatives are Valerie Sapozhnikova, Joey Goldberg, and Matthew Harold. Learned Foote and Sara Partridge are running unopposed for sophomore class president and vice president, with representatives Tom Amegadzie, Melissa Im, and Sean Udell.
The one-year University Senate position is the most competitive race with five contenders: Joseph Daniels, Tiffany Dockery, Billy Freeland, and Rishika Samant, all CC
’09, as well as David Zhu, CC ’11.
“I think a large part of it is that there are three spots open, so a lot of people think it’s achievable,” Freeland said of the Senate races. The other two spots are the two-year University Senate positions, for which there are three candidates: Monica Quaintance and James Downie, both CC ’10, and Stephanie Wilhelm, CC ’11.
Gabriel Castillo, CC ’10, and Karen Woodin, CC ’11, will compete for academic affairs representative. Also, Molly Conley and Priyanka Gumaste, both CC ’10, and Aaron Edmonds, CC ’09, will run for the two student services representative positions.
Finally, Melissa Santos, CC ’09, is running unopposed for preprofessional representative.