The foundations of our democracy have been shaken. We have learned through an exhaustive investigation (a.k.a. accidentally being cc’d on an internal email) that the CCSC elections board is currently investigating one of the parties running for freshman student council for election law violations.

What are the specific violations? Well, that’s tough for the Elections Board to say.

Rule violated:
The rule and regulation handbook link seems to be linking to the Columbia Law review for some reason so I’m not sure what specific rule has been violated.

But the alleged details of Stampgate, uncovered by one accused party’s rivals, are all too clear.

However, it is against the rules to print, post, and walk around with unapproved and unstamped campaign materials. Even if it is posted on your floor or the voter is forced to return the document after they’ve had a chance to review it.

Claim:
The [party] printed, posted, and campaigned with a printed edition of their platform that was printed after the approval date and it also was unstamped. Members of our party have heard about the use of this hard copy of the flyer in campaigning as early as four days ago but we have no idea how long they’ve been using these copies of their platform. We didn’t report it because we did not have access to a copy since the party members, in acknowledgment of their violation, ensured the return of the document.

The accused party will have 18 hours to respond to the allegations. Meanwhile, the corruption of our democracy continues apace. Bwog only uncovered this scandal because one of our staffers shares the same name as someone the email was intended for. Were it not for that fortuitous coincidence, would the scandal ever have seen the light of day? How many other egregious violations happen every day and go unreported?

This may give an idea. Bwog has received unconfirmed reports that another party has been using an unapproved style of tape to hold up their own posters. Behold Tapegate:

The party has also been violating many campaign rules, namely the tape rule (the party is using duct tape, scotch tape, thicker paper tape, and even staples instead of the provided paper tape). Please reveal this information to the public in order to prevent corruption in freshman class council politics.

Is nothing sacred?

Resignation via Wikimedia Commons