During the 2011-2012 student body president campaign, several campaign rule violations occurred.

The penalty for some of these campaign violations, according to Chapter Seven of the Student Body Statutes, is a dismissal hearing by the student senate or the judicial board.

According to the Student Body Statutes, candidates were required to submit weekly expense reports to the Elections Commission. On these reports, candidates were required to report money spent on their campaigns and also had to provide receipts from their transactions. They were also required to note any donations from supporters of their campaign, and fair market value, the cost the average consumer would have to pay, was to be recorded on all expenses.

The spending limit for a student body presidential campaign is $625 in personal funds, and donations cannot exceed half of the $625 spending limit, making the total spending limit $937.50 according to Chapter 7, Article 4.19.

Donations are defined as donated time, services, and materials that can be quantified monetarily. According to the candidates that were interviewed, the Elections Commission stated, that this does not include services by someone who has never charged for a given service in the past. For instance, if a computer science student were to create a website for a candidate and he had never charged for his services in the past, the candidate would be allowed to omit the service from the expense report.

Chandler Thompson, a junior in economics and winner of the 2011 student body presidential election, submitted weekly campaign expense reports as required by the Student Government Elections Commission. However, upon further inspection of her reports, there were several occurrences of under-reported donations.

According to publicly available documents obtained from the Elections Commission, Thompson reported spending a total of $872.88 on her campaign, $299.77 from donations and $573.11 out of her pocket.

On the expense reports filed with the Elections Commission, Thompson reported buying 1,500 pieces of paper throughout her campaign from Office Depot and Staples. She then reported the printing of 1,655 pieces of paper on her expense report. She claims that she printed all of her fliers and campaign materials on her personal printer.

“When you print with a personal printer you’re required to use the WolfCopy rate,” Chandler said.  “Every time I printed something, even though it was free to me, I reported it with the WolfCopy rate.”

Although Thompson reported her printing expense correctly at the WolfCopy rate, she claimed printing on 155 more pieces of paper than she reported on her expense report. 

Thompson also reported the donation of 1,000 individually-wrapped buttermints displaying her campaign logo. The mints, printed by Hospitality Mints, Co., were donated by her stepfather.

“I’m not sure that my step-dad even paid, so I just wanted to report what he told me they would cost had he paid for them,” Thompson said.

Hospitality Mints, Co. does not usually allow the purchase of mints below a quantity of 5,000 packages. Based on information from the company’s online catalog, mint package design and printing would have cost $90, and the case of 1,000 mint packages would have cost $49.99. She reported her total mint expense at $20.

On her expense report, she also recorded a $10 donation for “banner materials.” With no other mention of the five foot by eight foot yellow vinyl banners affixed to the Witherspoon and Talley student centers, the intersection of Pullen Road and Cates Avenue, and over the Free Expression Tunnel, it was determined that the banner materials referred to the yellow banners. According to a local sign shop, which requested to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, a conservative retail estimate for the vinyl material is $48.

Thompson also utilized a military discount on three of her purchases, totaling $16.84. She has never been in the military, but she got the discount while she was shopping with her boyfriend whose parents are in the military.

“I never took a military discount when I was alone. I never misrepresented myself,” Thompson said.

After creating a new report that included the fair market values of all Thompson’s campaign expenditures, the correct total of her donations including mint, and sign material adjustments should have been listed at $467.76, not the $299.77 she claimed on her final expense report. This brings her total spending to $1,041.87, 11 percent above the spending limit and $168.99 more than she claimed spending.

The Elections Commission, according to Thompson, approved all purchases and donations which she put on her report.

The top three finishers in the student body presidential election this year reported spending $2,140.91, which was 2.68 times what the bottom three finishers reported spending ($798.05).

Max Kangkolo, a junior in business administration who finished fifth of six in this year’s election, reported spending $97.76 on his campaign. On Kangkolo’s expense reports, he claimed that he only purchased 900 fliers at a total cost of $90, and eight cans of spray paint totaling $7.76. On his reports, he made no mention of the plywood signs he placed on campus during the campaign.

When asked about why he did not report the plywood signs, he said the signs we donated, but wasn’t aware they needed to be reported on his expense report.

“It was oversight on my part,” Kangkolo said. “I should have reported it. It was my fault.”

Election runner-up Ethan Bartlett claimed spending the most on his campaign, a total of $890.10.

According to people involved with the Bartlett campaign, he threw a campaign event on Tucker Beach during the final days his campaign that included a DJ. He did not submit an expense report containing party expenses to the Elections Commission on time.

Bartlett was unavailable for comment.

Senior in political science Lindsey Pullum was chair of the Elections Commission both this year and last year.

“We spend at least two hours on any Monday night during an election cycle looking at expense reports,” Pullum said. “We monitor and explicitly check expense reports for every candidate that comes through our doors.”

According to Pullum, the Elections Commission has contacted retail stores and sign companies in the past to verify candidate expense claims.

“We’ve even gone to the extent of calling said donors, asking ‘Is this legitimate?’ We’ve had campaigns in the past where people have used donations as a blanket term for everything they have spent,” Pullum said.

According to Pullum, once winners are sworn in, the responsibility of assessing campaign violations, and determining the repercussions of the violations, if any, are no longer in the hands of the commission. However, the Student Senate or the Judicial Board have the power to take action.