The 2015 Student Government Association Presidential Elections have started with yet another controversy within the campaigns: table wars.
Knight News received a tip this morning that candidates Cait Zona and Jarell Jones had taken over the table at the Student Union patio that was assigned to Brian Zagrocki and Alex Bennett.
When we approached Brian, he said, “We had an agreement, that’s our spot for tabling. UCF SU made an agreement with the election commissioner. We got here to find out that they already had our spot and they told us that we couldn’t have it.”
Zona had set up the tent closest to the Student Union, on the left side when facing the entrance. According to Zagrocki, the spot the tents are placed at really makes a difference.
“Why else would they have gotten here at five o’clock and stolen what we’ve already reserved?” said Zagrocki.
KnightNews also approached Zona regarding the information. She told us that, “Statutorily, any of the spots are open” and that, “Per statute, it’s first come first serve.”
Zona admitted that they picked numbers through the EC, but she had asked the SU for approval to table there.
Nicklas Bajema, Supervisor of Elections for the Election Commission, disputed Zona’s previous statement.
“It was not first come, first serve. There was an agreement had by the candidates initiated by me. They basically drew in a snake style fashion, basically if you had an NFL draft, kind of fantasy football style, so everyone gets a first, second, and last choice. And then, they pick the spots and they were supposed to honor that,” Bajema said.
Regarding the numbered spots Zona talked about, Bajema said that, “There was a preconceived notion that each person had a spot available to them in a fair manner, because it was established beforehand in an agreement with the elections commission.”
After receiving Bajema’s statement, we went back to Zona and asked her why she had said that the spots were first come, first serve.
Zona said that they received building permission and anything that was reserved was for Election Commissioner general.
“We just decided with our team we just wanted to be as close to students and this was actually not a spot previously. So there was one spot per candidate, one spot per ticket, and they still have their own spot right there. This was actually not a spot on the map,” she said.
KnightNews.com was able to attain the map with the numbered spots the candidates received and compare that to the spot that Zona’s table was located.
As shown in the pictures, Zona’s table appears to be in a spot in the map, a spot assigned to Brian and Alex.
We also spoke to event services, who gave us a screenshot of the patio reservation schedule.
The entire patio was reserved for elections, but no reservation was made specifically for that table, which is shown to be a numbered table in the EC document, not an Event Services table.
Zona did request permission for that spot to be closer to students and Event Services agreed because the patio was open for elections. However, Event Services was not in charge of the table the EC had previously assigned,
Keep checking back to Knight News for continuing SGA election coverage.
