Campaigns launch amid conflict

Campus was littered with campaign materials Tuesday morning as student body president hopefuls brought their campaigns to life with posters, buttons and sandwich boards.

On the first official day of public campaigning, two candidates and members of the Board of Elections also were met with unexpected conflicts.

Student body president candidate Seke Ballard was fined $5 for “premature use of campaign materials” after issuing a document critiquing the platforms of candidates Seth Dearmin and Tom Jensen at the UNC Young Democrats candidates’ forum Monday night.

Jensen was issued a $2 fine for posting campaign materials in a prohibited location in Morrison Residence Hall.

Ballard was reprimanded by the BOE for issuing his document not because of its critical nature, but because of the time he issued it.

Election codes dictate that those vying for the position of student body president were not allowed to issue campaign materials to students until 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Jensen e-mailed Ballard Monday night, asking him not to give students any more copies of the critique.

“I was hoping that given the (incidents) in last year’s elections, the four of us this year would run a positive campaign,” he said.

But Ballard again presented the document to members of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies at their forum Tuesday evening.

He said the forums are so structured that candidates do not have time to express their critiques of other candidates’ platforms.

“We felt that we needed to provide the student body with a comprehensive critique of each candidate’s platforms,” Ballard said, noting that his campaign would print a critique of candidate Leigha Blackwell’s platform by the end of the week.

At the forum, the four candidates were each given six minutes to discuss their platforms.

After the opening remarks, members of DiPhi posed questions to the candidates.

Dearmin said his main focuses are making life easier for students by strengthening systems that are already in place and fixing the right problems.

“We are going to work on things like ticket distributions, having condoms in all buildings and blue lights on campus to ensure safety,” he said.

Blackwell said the goal of her platform is to connect UNC’s resources so organizations can maximize their productivity.

“One of our ideas is a Web site — ‘Blue Pages’ — to provide a central location to find links to student organizations and answers to frequently asked questions,” Blackwell said.

Jensen said the biggest goal of his campaign is to allow students to get “more for their money.”

“I’m not real happy with the way student government has been running during my time at Carolina,” Jensen said.

“I want us to be outraged when our tuition gets raised and send messages to the (decision-makers) that it’s not OK.”

Ballard said his platform is characterized by a complete plan to attack tuition increases, reopen campus computer labs and work to establish an endowed distinguished speakers series.

“Bringing in speakers brings an outside perspective that challenges what we think in our microcosm,” Ballard said.

“This is how revolutions happen. We need to increase challenging ourselves.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.