Were SGA Insiders Campaigning Before New Candidates Had a Chance?
News, UCF Administration, UCF SGA — By Andrew Stein on September 27, 2010 at 12:40 amUpdate Monday: We hit the streets to ask UCF students if they felt SGA did a good job advertising the election and how to run. Hear for yourself how how sad so many students think the state of these elections are:
While Speaker of the Senate Drew Pope was planning secret meetings for members of his senate ticket, his fraternity brother, Shane Meckler, apparently failed to meet his duties as the Chief Election Commissioner by not properly advertising the election to students outside of SGA who may have wanted to get involved.
On the night of September 6, Drew Pope held a secret meeting at Brooklyn Pizza on campus, where he and his fellow senators planned out their election strategy the night before applications for candidacy were available to the average student, video evidence obtained by KnightNews.com shows.
Click Below for Slideshow of pictures from the questionable secret meeting:
Once those in attendance at this meeting saw KnightNews.com reporters enter the room, some shouted profanity and they stormed out and fled the scene as Pope yelled, “Come on, let’s get out of here!”
We wanted to ask: If they weren’t doing anything wrong, why did they storm out so violently? But Pope did not immediately respond to a phone call Sunday night for comment. Earlier, KnightNews.com reported Attorney General Nick Gurney released this opinion warning candidates not to actively campaign before petitions were turned in. Pope’s meeting happened the day before petitions were even available. We left a message for Pope and will post his reply if he provides a statement.
This year, UCF has the largest population it’s ever had, and there are more open positions available in SGA than in years past, yet this is the most uncontested race we’ve ever seen. Out of 56 open senate positions, only seven have to campaign for their seats against another opponent on the ballot, while the rest are either vacant or unopposed.
SGA statutes require that the Chief Elections Commissioner, Shane Meckler, place advertisements in “all campus media” one week before petitions for candidacy are made available. But KnightNews.com never received any such advertisement or request to publicize petitions during that time.
When we called Meckler on Sunday for comment, he said he recalled placing one advertisement in the Central Florida Future newspaper sometime in early September, but did not recall the date. Regardless, any advertisement would have had to be placed in all campus media by at least September 1 in order to fulfill this requirement, suggesting statutes were likely broken and the election was not fairly open to all students.
When we asked him how he defines ”campus media,” Meckler said, “I would have to talk to other people first.” We asked who he’d have to talk to since he is supposed to be the authority on the matter, and he said, “No official decision was made that anyone was campus media…my complete interpretation has not been made or not.” The lack of a official decision on something that Meckler was required to decide on weeks ago still hasn’t been made, even as the election starts Monday — and it’s already too late to advertise the availability of petitions.
Why has SGA decided to keep this election so quiet? We called, left a message and e-mailed SGA’s Chief Information Officer, Shane Chism, asking why the SGA website has not made the information regarding the elections the top story, in a way that an average person would see or click on it. Chism did not immediately respond, but we will post his reply if he comments.
As of Sunday night, the election was not listed under the “Upcoming Events” section of the SGA website, and we couldn’t find anything about elections mentioned on SGA’s official twitter account.
While critics may consider SGA trivial and an outright joke, others have expressed deep concerns to KnightNews.com over this behavior because this election decides who fills the senate seats that oversee the spending of $15 million, and there is almost zero competition.
In a statement on Thursday night to Senate, Hannah Fraher, an election commissioner, stated that about a dozen students have signed up to be write-in candidates since the sign-up date ended, which means they missed the deadline to have their names on the ballot, which significantly reduces their chances of winning.
KnightNews.com has also received complaints from write-in candidates who said they had to sign up to run as write-ins because they missed the poorly advertised deadline to do so.
The elections commission is made up of nine students, appointed by SGA President Mike Kilbride, who are all paid salaries out of students’ tuition dollars to make sure a proper election is held and advertised. This means there are more paid individuals overseeing an election than the number of senatorial candidates actually competing against another person listed on the ballot for their seat.
KnightNews.com will continue following this developing story, and will let you know if a decision is made to change the date of the election to allow the students running as write-in candidates against Speaker Pope’s ticket to have their name placed on the ballot.
We’ll let you know if anyone in SGA decides to conduct an investigation or file a complaint based on what KnightNews.com uncovered, or if someone files an injunction with Orange County’s Ninth Judicial Circuit to stop this election until everyone who wanted to run can get on the ballot.
Check back for updates.
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29 Comments
I think this is incredulous(sp), I mean who would be campaignin so early for an election? Especially after what happend with the presidential elections two years ago. This is a blantant disregard for the elections violations satatutes and should have been aknowledged at the start. Furthermore, the pictures are physically proof and evident of what was going on. If they can still run for election, what has SGA at UCF come to? Furthermore, I hope violations are submitted or were submitted against these wrongdoers.
Sincerely
Berkovitz
Hey, someone has the same last name as me..
awesome
Proves my point
A senator is supposed to take initiative, information about running for senate has been online since school started this year and any student interested can ask in SGA.
I saw posters around campus.
What is important is that the information was never hidden or even hard to find.
Please anyone reading this, read knightnews but take everything they say with a grain of salt. Do your own research. Find these students talk to them and then form your own opinion.
Also Tyler Rits its the elections commission not the elections council.
I know nothing about fraternities, but I’ll call random people “keg stand” and cry about a student government election for my friend Andrew Stein’s site. It feels so good to have a friend like Stein! And to think… you actually have to SELL YOUR SOUL TO FIT IN!
Prove me wrong keg-stand..
Blame the blamers, as always
OR it’s something that people, including the author of this article, have done year after year in elections. Unofficial tickets are a staple of UCF elections, right or wrong, and before somebody says that “it doesn’t matter if it happened in the past, it shouldn’t happen now’ that’s not what this article’s stance is. Congratulations on making an ignorant generalization about Greek life, too.
Clearly there’s only one reason these kids are taking advantage of an early head start and a late notice to the public.
They’re scared. They know their no good when it comes to administration and policy. They want to stay in power because it makes them get along more with the other kids and gives them more friend requests on their facebook- oh and the obvious resume boost. Most of these kids are in dire need of mass support that its the only thing that keeps them asleep at night. Only good for chugging down happy hour specials and taking facbeook pics with their retarded frat shirts on. I mean, to think, you have to actually pay to fit in.
Unfortunately, this is where corruption is incubated, from an early age- even in schools. No dignity, no shame. Terrible…
Why are you telling KnightNews to get their sources straight? Can you name one thing inaccurate in this story? No, it’s all true.
Did SGA advertise the election? No.
Did SGA have an ad on its own website before the election? No.
Do statutes require them to? Yes.
Did Pope have a secret meeting before petitions were open? Yes.
Was he caught? Yes.
Are only 7 ouf of 57 seats contested? Yes.
Are there more write-ins who missed the deadline than incumbants? Yes.
Thanks to Stein, we actually have someone bringing this corruption to an end.
Knightnews, you are ridiculous. You all have made one, too many implications and are not seeing that you are trying to cause unneeded controversy that probably the other 50,000 students DON’T CARE ABOUT. Get your sources straight and stop being so damn bitter over things that are honestly irrelevant.
Stick to El Corral videos instead of conspiracy theories.
You obviously dont pay your own tuition. I do and I struggle to support myself. When I see how irresponsibly SGA manages the money I give them every semester I get angry and annoyed. We voted these people in to represent the students and NOT themselves. They just look out for their own interests and dont care about throwing our money away for useless causes.
Joey Femia as the next SGA President!?!? that’s hysterical.
As a former SGA Senator, I can say that SGA is corrupt and all about the Paycheck these SGA officials get. Paychecks that are made of STUDENT MONEY. THEY DONT CARE ABOUT THE STUDENTS. If there was no money involved these kids would not act like such scumbags. I think Knight News should post an article about how much money all these SGA officials are making. When I was there years ago the SGA Payroll was already over $80,000 a year. Keep up the good work Knight News.
if your going to have this secret meetng, why would you do it on campus? just do it at someones house so no one can find out..stupid
Why did SGA wait so long before publishing the list of candidates? Did Pope and Meckler get a chance to compare the list and pick who ran where before everyone else? Why isn’t anyone asking this obvious question?
Where is the accountability?
again knightnews…thank you for wasting my time. i will “LIKE” this page again, once you guys work on your journalistic ethics and provide newsworthy content. this was a waste of time and so is knightnews. I guess I won’t be winning the IPAD lol. garbage.
please leave the bias at the door next time. theres a solid reason why you guys werent invited…your not a legitimate source of campus news…or any news for that matter.
Beta Corruption
1. Drew Pope, Speaker of the Senate and the person organizing this ticket, is in the Beta fraternity.
2. Shane Meckler, the Chief EC responsbile for advertising the election (which he broke statutes and didn’t do), is the PRESIDENT of Pope’s fraternity.
3. Joey Femia, Kilbride’s Chief of Staff for the entire Executive Branch, is also in the Beta fraternity. He has not had his communications team advertise the election either, as the SGA website barely makes any mention of it, no press release is on the website today about the election and their twitter account has made no mention of it either.
It is obvious that Kilrbide has appointed all his friends who are Betas, and they are keeping the election quiet so no one runs against his brothers and Beta can have control of SGA so Joey Femia can be the next SGA president, Pope can be the Speaker of the Senate and then Femia can appoint another Beta to be the Chief Justice and Meckler can be the Beta in charge of elections.
Hmmmm, coincidence?
The election should be thrown out.
Once again when knightnews brings another scandal to light the student government kids just whine and point to the past trying to justify their actions.
It was corrupt before, and even more corrupt now. You guys are plannig these tickets and then your sga friends aren’t doing their jobs and advertising it to ALL students in all campus media like they are supposed to. You don’t even have it on your stupid twitter page or upcoming events section of your web page… but I am sure that is all knight news’ fault too, right?
The people getting paid by our student fees might believe this BS, but the regular students see right through this crap. Own up to the crap you pulled and STOP IT from happening again.
i don’t usually comment on this site, but thought this was as good a time as ever to start… all i want to say is that this article comes across as incredibly bitter, biased, and heavyhanded in style… i dont necessarily buy into the whole idea that knightnews is a tabloid or campaign tool, but when i see things like this, i wonder about the journalistic ethics of the owners and the writers. my two cents
Let’s put everyone under oath or conduct depositions and see if we find out whether Pope and his buddies had a spreadsheet, list or other notes they displayed to other people of their ticket to ensure he’d stay as speaker making $1400 a month.
How else can you keep track of everyone colluding to form a ticket without signing up on the board until the last minute without keeping track of it and telling people what to do and where to sign up before hand?
Think about it. What is more likely than not to have happened… hello.
@how is that legal?
Chapter 600 of SGA Election Statutes: “Active Campaigning – Any display or distribution of tangible items or electronic media for a candidate/ticket for an elective office of the student body.”
Do you see anything about “talking” in there? Do you see any prohibition against verbally soliciting support or endorsements? No? You know why? Because it’s NOT THERE. Your definition of campaigning is irrelevant; the only one that matters is THIS one from statutes. What Pope did is 100% legal, and is done by candidates and tickets every election, including by this article’s author when he ran for Student Body President two years ago. For him to suggest otherwise is not only false, it’s maliciously false.
How is it legal? They were there to talk about who would run where so they could support each other’s race. They were soliciting support for their seat and endorsements from other people. If that’s not campaigning, then what is?
Pope is the one who will have to fall on the sword for this one…. he was clearly running it, and the other people there can claim they had no clue why Pope had invited them.
Disgraceful.
Yes, Pope’s meeting was legal. Go read the definition of “active campaigning” in statutes. Did you see any electronic media or tangible items there that he used to promote his or anyone else’s candidacy? No? Oh. Okay. Then there wasn’t active campaigning and it’s legal. Just like it was legal when you ran your own secret meetings before Declaration when you ran for President, Stein. Or did you forget you did that too?
Stein the hypocrite strikes again!
Wonderful, that’s exactly what I was scanning for! You just saved me alot of searching around.
Become literate.
The only people that need to grow up is Kilbride and Pope who don’t advertise the election with there boy Shane Meckler and plan a ticket before the declaration period.
There campaigning that’s for sure.
This website used to be a great way to read about the things going on with this campus and I truly thought it would be an awesome thing… the stories that have come out lately just seem to be political potshots at people the editors or whoever is in charge dont like… and for what? if knightnews really cared about these candidates they would have gone to the candidate meet-and-great. i was there… they werent. i dont understand what andrew stein or anyone else are looking to gain from this type of coverage? this is one loyal reader saying goodbye to this site for good
Are you kidding me stein? Grow up man, is it your goal to knock students down. You are probably the biggest sore loser I have ever met. Continue being a tool and getting let down by every girl youve ever tried to get with. When will you wake up and realise your only satisfaction is to knock others? Im amashamed to call you a member of the tribe
Just because someone is a write-in candidate, it doesn’t necessarily mean they missed the deadline to declare as an official candidate. It could also mean they weren’t able to get 50 signatures in time, for example. And why should it matter? This is something that was advertised thoroughly and those who complain they weren’t given enough notice ahead of time shouldn’t be rewarded for missing deadlines. Knightnews is a tabloid on one hand and a political mouthpiece for disenfranchised, bitter losers of past elections on the other.
Thank you!
Finally someone calls this piece of shit out. Pope sleeps with young girls on senate making them feel like they have to get with him to move up the senate ladder and he goes on trips/gets perks on our dime.
Now he’s just breaking election statutes by early campaigning.
Engineers should be ashamed to have him as a representative and KnightNews and everyone else need to make sure that this womanizing unethical scumbag isn’t anywhere near a real government job for the rest of his life.