Written by: Rebecca Kay
My name is Rebecca Kay. I am currently a non-traditional student representative in the Associated Students of Boise State University (ASBSU) and I ran for President of ASBSU and led a team called The Stallions in the last election.
Recently, Carson Cole and Maddy Riley were elected as President and Vice President of BSU’s student government from The Charge team. It is my belief that The Charge lied, cheated and participated in cyber bullying during the election. I believe the student body deserves to know what was happening behind the scenes during elections
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that The Charge broke election code repeatedly to gain an unfair advantage in the election. They campaigned in classes during class time, in an academic building and before the designated campaigning time. However, none of the matters were handled formally via a review of evidence and a discussion with the person who filed the complaint.
I filed a complaint with the ASBSU Review Board on March 31 after The Charge came into one of my classes and spoke during class time, which is a violation of the Elections Code. I had video evidence of the infraction, along with an appropriate time stamp of class being in session. On April 1, I received communication from the Review Board Chief, Gavin Verandes, which stated that the complaint would be handled informally.
As a candidate for elections myself, I was watching the situation very closely. On the second day of election campaigning, I heard some mean comments against the Trailblazers and the Stallions appearing on the Boise State YikYak. This anonymous forum allows individuals to post comments about their university, and is only available to iPhone users.
Since I do not have an iPhone, all of my information has come from people on my team and on the Trailblazers. I was told a user commented that myself and my Vice President, David Bru, were ugly. One replier commented with the barf emoji, and someone mentioned that David needed a haircut.
Almost all of the harmful comments were directed at the Trailblazers and the Stallions, with very few negative comments about The Charge. It was abundantly clear The Charge and their affiliates were leading the YikYak barrage of posts. Anything positive related to The Charge often had hundreds of votes, while things against The Charge were down voted.
With YikYak being anonymous, nothing could be done by the University. The commenters could not be held accountable without direct evidence. Still, two members of The Stallions resigned because of the negative comments. It was very disheartening to see motivated individuals who wanted to make a positive change at the University resign for this reason.
The students have a right to know who they elected to represent them.
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