Early electioneering: Ingram's complaint to the Board of Elections is self-serving and frivolous

Rick Ingram isn’t fooling anyone with his Board of Elections complaint about Student Body Secretary Ian Lee.

Months from the elections, Ingram says that Lee is violating the Student Code clause prohibiting the student body secretary and select executive branch members from endorsing a candidate or campaigning.

Ingram alleges that Lee is e-mailing friends about running for student body president.

Ingram’s motives are obvious: If he is trying to hide his own campaign to be student body president, he’s not doing a very good job.

Since there are no official candidates until January, Lee is not a candidate, whether or not he will become one.

And if Ingram wishes to follow the letter of the law on campaigning, he’d be wise to read the line which prohibits public and private campaigns before official declarations in the spring.

The Code has many flaws regarding campaigning, and it is often contradictory.

But the Board of Elections has in the past set a precedent that official campaigns begin after the declaration of intent to run for office in the spring.

And as the board investigates the complaint, it should recognize this for what it appears to be: an attempt by Ingram to use technicalities to undermine his opponents and gain publicity.

Because if Lee is breaking rules, then Ingram himself deserves investigation.

Ingram says he is only trying to maintain “integrity” in student government and get beyond perceptions that its members are “just in it to help themselves.”

But he has no problem bending the rules himself, judging by the “rick4sbp” listservs, and his shameless invitations to join his campaign machine in order to evade the prohibition on public campaigning.

If anyone is undermining the campaign process right now, it’s him — and he’s not building any respect for his candidacy.