Complaints to the Board of Elections this season have a new target: the Student Union.
As students and Union officials have scrambled to gather the 2,939 unique signatures required so students can vote on the proposed $11 million UCommons renovation project, the board has received complaints alleging petitioning practices that violate Student Code election law.
Andrew Phillips, the board’s chairman, said about a half dozen complaints have cited violations including petitioning and collecting signatures online and in prohibited areas.
On Wednesday, UNC student Marc Seelinger submitted a complaint that petitioners were collecting signatures in Rams Head Dining Hall, a prohibited area. Other complaints have cited the posting of campaign materials in prohibited areas and the misuse of online campaigning, including the use of Twitter and marketing UCommons on the home page of Union computers.
“As I understand it, the line from dining services is that distributing materials or gathering signatures inside their facilities is prohibited,” Phillips said.
Union officials submitted 3,416 signatures on Wednesday to Student Body President Hogan Medlin, said Tyler Mills, president of the Carolina Union Activities Board. Medlin, who will need to verify the signatures and direct the board to vote on the referendum, said he will decide by Sunday.
If 2,939 or more of those signatures are approved, the referendum to raise fees for bottom floor renovations will appear on the Tuesday election ballot.
A majority of at least 735 students must vote in favor of the fee increase for it to pass. Students would pay $16 more per year for the next 30 years to fund the project, which would provide more meeting and rehearsal space on the bottom floor and keep the building open 24 hours.
Don Luse, director of the Student Union, said the student fee advisory committee told him it was the Union’s responsibility to inform students about the project, which led to the distribution of information across campus.
