Sophomore Attendant candidate Kim Brown advanced to Thursday’s runoff despite allegations that a confession by a former campaign worker was a favor to keep Brown in the race.
Brown, 19, who will face Christy Hunt in the runoff, accumulated 41 points during her campaign for sophomore attendant. The electoral commission votes to disqualify a candidate after he or she has amassed 30 points.
“She was assessed the points and following that she was disqualified,” Deputy Electoral Commissioner Mikal Lewis said.
Brown was disqualified Monday after Solicitor General Veronica Gray decided that she’d amassed too many points to continue to run for the position.
After an appeal was denied, Darensbourg, a freshman biology student from Atlanta, came forward and admitted to intentionally sabotaging the campaign by purposely placing campaign materials in Truth, Wheatley and Cropper bathrooms 30 minutes before campaigning began. The admission shed new light on the case and Gray reversed her ruling.
Darensbourg, who refused to comment, said in a sworn statement that she met Brown through a mutual friend. According to the statement, she submitted to the student Supreme Court, she knew what she did was not permitted.
“On Tuesday. Feb. 25, 2003 I attended a campaign meeting in which Kim D. Brown informed us not to pre-campaign,” the statement said. “I understood this to mean not to distribute or post any of Kim’s campaign materials before 7 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003. … But at 6:30 a.m. I posted some of the material in the bathrooms of Truth, Wheatley and Cropper dorms. I did this intentionally. … I felt that somebody else would be better for the job.”
In her statements, Darensbourg mentioned knowing freshmen Hunt and Tiffany Williams, both of whom were running for sophomore attendant. Hunt said she couldn’t say for sure if she knew Darensbourg.
“I would have to see her face to know for sure if I knew her,” said Hunt, a 19-year-old pharmacy student from Atlanta. “But I don’t know why she’s sabotaging people.
“That’s ugly.”
Williams, 19, said though Darensbourg may have sabotaged Brown’s campaign, fault still lay with Brown.
“Your campaign team is you,” said the business administration student from Hattiesburg, Miss. “Anything they do is a direct reflection of you. That’s the way we all understood it.”
She said the timing of Darensbourg’s coming forward doesn’t sit right with her.
“She’s trying to help (Brown) so they would grant the appeal,” she said. “All of us can’t understand why (Brown) is on the ballot.”
Brown refused to comment for this story.
Lewis said any further decisions on the subject would go through the judicial branch of the SGA.
“(The Electoral Commission) has made our decision,” he said. “And we stick by it.”
Gray said everything taken in was submitted during the allotted time to appeal any decision she handed down. She said the case is currently going through the discovery process – when both sides of the argument compile evidence – and that a hearing date has not been set.
“There is no case law as to what actions should be taken on sabotage,” said Gray, 21, a senior economics student from New Paltz, N.Y.
Though the sabotage story is being challenged by others running for sophomore attendant, Gray believes what has been presented to be true.
“The fact that I made a decision and recanted… should send a message of how credible I feel the story is.”