Six candidates were penalized for making campaign-related comments to The Famuan for an article about the upcoming SGA elections.
The following candidates for SGA president and vice-president were penalized: Malcolm Glover and Xaviera Estes; Larry Rivers and Virgil Miller. Miss FAMU candidate Ashia Everett and Queen of Orange and Green candidate Shenena Armstrong were also reprimanded.
The students were charged with pre-campaigning and penalized 30 points because the comments were made before “Campaign Week” officially began.
Accumulating more points could result in their disqualification.
“After you incur 30 points or more, you are subject to disqualification,” Electoral Commissioner Mike Lipford. “The commission votes on whether you’re disqualified.”
Deputy Electoral Commissioner Mikal Lewis, said electoral commissioners voted on two concerns – whether the comments made were campaigning and if the candidates were to be disqualified.
“We had to decide if this was something that would have been said during campaign week,” said Lewis, a senior business management student from Baltimore.
The penalty points were given, but none of the candidates were disqualified.
Rivers and Miller were penalized because Miller gave a statement to The Famuan that was “considered campaigning,” according to a notice received from the Electoral Commission.
“It wasn’t an ad, it wasn’t an endorsement,” said Rivers, a junior broadcast journalism student from Tallahassee. “It was a general statement made in an article.”