Board Cites Lack Of Evidence in CAA Controversy

Board members began to investigate the validity of testimony and evidence presented in a Feb. 15 hearing Friday in hopes of resolving suspicions about both Reid Chaney and Michael Songer's campaigns.

"Due to the current lack of evidence that specifically implicates individuals, within the Songer and Chaney campaign, who have committed obvious election law violations the board chooses to take no action at this time against either campaign," the board declared Sunday night.

Board members say students previously implicated by electronic evidence in the investigation -- CAA President Tee Pruitt, Carolina Fever Co-chairs Eric Ellis and Anna Kroncke, sophomore Richard Amundson and possibly others -- were framed.

Fred Hill, vice chairman of the Board of Elections, said the board had not yet identified the party or parties responsible but was continuing to investigate the issue.

Controversy began to cloud the race shortly after the Feb. 13 student elections, when the invalidation of numerous write-in votes gave Chaney the majority necessary to win.

But Songer's campaign quickly called for Chaney's disqualification from the race after Davin McGinnis, UNC alumnus and former Carolina Fever president, sent a mass e-mail to students urging them to vote for Chaney.

Chris Brook, Songer's representative in the hearing, argued that the e-mail was libelous and affected the outcome of the election -- possibly giving Chaney his five-vote majority.

Songer's campaign attempted to link McGinnis' mass e-mail to Chaney's campaign with another e-mail -- later dubbed the "smoking gun" e-mail -- allegedly sent by McGinnis to Ellis, Pruitt and Bryan Hart, who resigned as vice president of CAA to work on Chaney's campaign.

The board determined last weekend that the "smoking gun" e-mail was a forgery and launched an investigation into who might have constructed the e-mail.

But after in-depth investigations, the Board of Elections concluded that none of the individuals origionally implicated were involved in creating the forgery.

The investigation sought to identify the origins of McGinnis' e-mail and the forged e-mail.

Board members found that McGinnis had used the same mass e-mailing program used by Pruitt in his campaign for re-election last February. Pruitt had sent a mass e-mail that was found to be libelous against Songer, and Pruitt was forced to publicly apologize for the e-mail.

Although Pruitt testified that McGinnis could not have used the CAA computer to send the e-mail, Board of Elections member Bryan Crumpler said it is "highly unlikely" that a program other than the one found on the CAA computer was used to send this e-mail.

By further studying the CAA computer and its log, the board came to the conclusion that Pruitt, Ellis, Kroncke, Amundson and possibly others had conspired to create the forged e-mail.

But during the weekend, Board members found further evidence that exonerated those individuals, who the board feels were framed by another individual. Board members found evidence that someone had altered and deleted crucial computer files from the CAA computer in the early morning hours of Feb. 14, 15 and 17.

Ellis was specifically linked to the forged e-mail until board members realized that a flaw in the UNC Webmail program, when using Internet Explorer, allowed someone to open Ellis' e-mail and gain access to crucial information -- previously thought to be privy only to Ellis -- used to create the forgery.

Crumpler and Board of Elections Vice Chairman Fred Hill said Tuesday's re-election would continue as planned, barring any dramatic advancements.

Crumpler said, "Whoever did this did a very dirty job of cleaning up."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.