Paul Kushner, chairperson of the UNC Board of Elections, said elections will be moving forward as planned today — just without the student body president portion. Students can vote for other offices and on the referendum to split student government at studentlife.unc.edu until 8 p.m. tonight.
Kushner said the injunction on the student body president elections will not delay hearings for complaints, including the ones filed against student body president candidates Maurice Grier and Elizabeth Adkins.
“I was specifically told that the hearings are not paused as part of this injunction — this is merely a pause on voting,” Kushner said.
The hearings are both scheduled for Friday.
The UNC Student Supreme Court’s injunction pausing student body president elections comes after Travis Broadhurst, a write-in candidate for student body president, filed a complaint against the BOE to the UNC Student Supreme Court.
His complaint said the BOE did not properly apply the rules for certifying the required 1,250 signatures needed for a candidate to be on ballot. According to the complaint, the Board of Elections has historically required all signatures to be Onyen-verified, meaning the student signing a petition must provide their Onyen and corresponding password for it to be valid.
“The fact that Onyen verification, as the term is used in the Student Code, requires a password is further supported by the entire purpose of Onyen verification — fraud prevention,” the complaint said.
The complaint said the board improperly validated signatures gathered by Grier and Adkins. The complaint said if they had been properly validated, it is likely neither Grier nor Adkins would have made it on the ballot.
