This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Shortly before Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., with only two hours until polls were set to open, one of the two slates with presidential candidates running for Student Government Board was officially kicked off the ballot.
The Vision slate’s removal followed a sleepless night of multiple hours long Zoom meetings after an alleged Student Affairs policy violation worked its way through several rounds of hearings. The board’s judicial committee ultimately decided Tuesday at around 5:45 a.m. to uphold a decision from the board’s elections committee on Monday at about 10 p.m. to remove Vision from the ballot. Vision was one of four slates running in the elections, which are open to student voters Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Several representatives from SGB gave conflicting accounts of why Vision was removed from the ballot. Some said it was due to a Student Code of Conduct violation, but Student Affairs spokesperson Janine Fisher said no referrals have yet been received as of Tuesday morning. Others said it was due to violating a passage from the Student Unions’ Policies and Procedures Handbook while in a residence hall, while others have said it’s due to not updating the board about its campaign materials distribution plan, given ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.
Tyler Viljaste, a rival presidential candidate from the Brightside Slate, submitted the initial complaint about the Vision slate which centered around Vision distributing slate-branded shot glasses as “Hershey’s cup holders” to first-year students in primarily first-year residence halls.
Joe Landsittel, a junior and Vision’s presidential candidate, said Viljaste filing the complaint was the latest in “unprecedented hostility” toward the Vision campaign and candidates who aren’t current board members.
“They have been threatened by our campaign, the idea that we are not within SGB at the moment and that we are running for these positions,” Landsittel said. “This goes to show their mentality, that they are not welcoming towards outsiders, they’re not an institution that is looking to bring in a diverse range of opinions.”
The elections committee came to the conclusion that Vision had violated a passage from a non-existent “Student Affairs Policy and Procedures” document. The passage cited by the committee can be found in the Student Unions’ Policies and Procedures Handbook, which only applies to Pitt’s two student unions on campus — the William Pitt Union and O’Hara Student Center, not to all “University property” as applied by the committee.
The elections committee announced Monday at 10:11 p.m. that the shot glass distribution was in “direct violation of the approved distribution plan and Student Code of Conduct.” Vision slate members said they have not received any information about potential Code of Conduct violations.
After processing an appeal from Vision about the elections committee’s ruling, the judicial committee said in an early Tuesday morning report that it did not find “substantial errors” in the election committee’s decision or hearing process conducted. It further said the actions taken by Vision were “willfully, purposefully, and flagrantly” in violation of election procedure, though it did not list what actions it was specifically referencing.
Stephen Jacobus, the judicial committee chair, and Olivia Bartholomew, the elections committee chair, have both declined to comment on the situation. The judicial committee had not posted its final ruling publicly as of Tuesday at 7:15 a.m.
Landsittel said the judicial committee eventually took the slate off the ballot because they did not properly inform the elections committee of changes to their shot glass distribution plan, given ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.
Daniel Rudy, a junior and a Vision board candidate, added that Viljaste, an opponent, having the ability to file the complaint against the slate is “absurd.”
“The fact that he has now been able to submit this complaint and have us thrown off the ballot less than a day before the election is absurd,” Rudy said. “And the fact that he is now poised to potentially be in the highest elected position on this campus as a student is frankly extremely concerning to all of us.”
Viljaste said early Tuesday morning, following the Vision slate’s removal from the ballot, that he doesn’t think the elections and judicial committees came to their decision lightly.
“I’d encourage voters to still go on and vote, even if some candidates may not be on the ballot that were running in this election,” Viljaste said. “I would encourage anyone who still has questions about the Brightside platform to reach out to me or any of my running mates.”
Eric Macadangdang, the president of SGB, said the timeline for the Monday and Tuesday hearings were “not ideal,” but added that this matter “has gone through the appropriate process, in full.”
“From my end, I commend Olivia and Stephen and their respective committees for being able to do such things through the night,” Macadangdang said. “Obviously some of these students had early morning classes and they’d dedicated hours in the middle of the night to seeing this process through, which is important for the sake of transparency, justice and fairness.”
Steve Anderson, SGB’s adviser, said Tuesday morning that he was not involved in the decision making process as the committees deliberated but was ultimately informed of their decision.
“To my understanding, the process was followed,” Anderson, an associate dean of students and the director of the Office of Residence Life, said. “I don’t know, and I’m not in a place to comment, on what happened during those committee hearings because I wasn’t there.”
Rudy said the Vision slate is putting their full support behind Harshitha Ramanan, an independent presidential candidate, to ensure that “this never happens to a Pitt student again.”
Contributed reporting by Leah Mensch.
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