PHOENIX – The executive ticket for Arizona State University’s Undergraduate Student Government Downtown election was declared compromised Wednesday, leading to a re-run election.
The re-run election comes after accusations that presidential candidate Katie Ritchie bribed members of a club.
A post made on Instagram during the campaigning period by the Kinesiology Honors Society said the club was offering “general credit” if members “send [them] a picture with Katie Ritchie”. The post has since been deleted.
Ritchie said she does not believe the post constituted “bribery”.
Section 12.15 of the USG Elections Code says, “bribing voters with monetary, material, or social incentives of substantial value to affect their voting choices or voting behavior is strictly prohibited.”
“They’ve never defined what substantial value means. And so there was no way that we could have even known this sort of engagement would have qualified as bribery,” Ritchie said.
A statement posted by Ritchie’s campaign said that members of the Kinesiology Honors Society are required to earn six engagement credits per semester to maintain their active status. Ritchie was supposed to speak at one of the meetings, but after scheduling conflicts the club decided to allow students to receive their engagement credit by going to the tabling event.
Ritchie said no students ended up participating for the credit.
In Ritchie vs. Election Commission, the USG Supreme Court ruled Ritchie to be disqualified due to the bribery section of the USG Election Code, but later overturned the ruling because Ritchie was not notified within the 48-hour period, as set in Section 16.6 of the USG Elections Code.
“I’m happy that the Supreme Court is maintaining integrity in the election process and holding the election commissions accountable,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie said she believed the main issue in the original election was related to the failure to uphold the election code and issues with the elections commissioner.
“It really boils down to the election commission not upholding the elections code and effectively responding to election complaints,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie said Sai Kaneeshka Jakkula, the downtown elections commissioner, behaved inappropriately during the campaigning period and engaged in biased activity with the members of the other presidential ticket for Rei Tedoco.
“She has a close personal relationship with the Tedoco ticket’s campaign manager and was publicly seen engaging in supportive behavior toward the campaign, such as hugging members at campaign events,” Ritchie said.
Tedoco said she never saw problems with the elections commissioners because the downtown election commissioner has no jurisdiction over the downtown election.
“Actually, the West Valley campus [elections commissioner] was the one reviewing us. The downtown commissioners do not review our complaints. That’s the transparency I have because that is bias. That is implicit bias so we have a different campus reviewing our complaints,” Tedoco said.
Tedoco said she had heard rumors of a re-run election, but was not informed before an email was sent to all students.
“I never received any real confirmation email until I saw that email,” Tedoco said. “Everything was just kind of talk, and so yesterday when I received that email, I was just honestly speechless.”
Ritchie said she had no prior knowledge of the re-run and had not heard anything regarding it.
“In full disclosure, there has not been a ton of communication shared with us,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie said her campaigning has been deeply affected, and students are hesitant to engage with her campaign due to the accusations.
“It’s just a really unfortunate turn of events because I think we worked really hard throughout our campaign and it’s just upsetting to know that our integrity is being undermined currently,” Ritchie said.
She said that the re-run election doesn’t just affect her campaigning, but also her student and personal life.
“I am still trying to process it as a candidate, and also, beyond this, we are students at the end of the day. We are humans,” Ritchie said.
She said the hardest part has been the amount of negative attention she has received due to an article published by The State Press.
“They didn’t overturn the bribery and that’s what the State Press is running with, is that ‘Katie Richie found guilty of bribing students’, but we released an official statement on our social media page just kind of explaining the situation to students,” Ritchie said.
Tedoco said the situation is frustrating for both parties.
“It’s just been so hard, and honestly just discredits all the hard work that we had to do in the campaigning period,” Tedoco said.
Cindy Craven, a campaign staffer for the Tedoco ticket, said that while it is hard to redo the election process, she finds it to be an opportunity for more progress.
Tedoco and Ritchie said they are focused on what comes next.
Craven said the Tedoco ticket is working hard to make sure no students are spreading hate towards Ritchie.
She said Tedoco’s ticket is focused on bringing students together and letting students know they have a voice, whether they vote for Tedoco or Ritchie.
“Obviously, when she’s running, she’s hoping that students will vote for her, but she wants people more than anything to vote for who they believe in,” Craven said.
Edited by Pedro Rodriguez, Shi Bradley
