Ohio University's Student Senate members voted last night to allow the names of the Boston Tea Party's treasurer Kelly Felter and vice president Joey Gibson to appear on senate election ballots today.
Felter and Gibson became involved in a dispute earlier this month, after election officials discovered that one of the required 75 signatures on each of their candidacy petitions had come from Devaughn Miree, who is not officially enrolled as an OU student.
Boston Tea Party president Mark Morris Mecum addressed student senators at last night's meeting. Felter and Gibson asked Miree if he was a student, and he said yes, Mecum said.
We're not sure who made the mistake -Devaughn or the university -but the student signed the petition thinking he was a student
Mecum said.
Mecum, Felter and Gibson also stressed that they had checked OU's student directory to make sure that Miree and all other people who had signed their petitions were registered students.
The party already appealed to the election board's decision to block Felter's and Gibson's names on ballots, and talked to senate president Jamie Walter early yesterday to ask her to reconsider the decision.
She said it's not her duty to rule Mecum said.
Following last night's meeting, a separate election committee met to discuss the issue.
We think this is in student interest to have a fair election and with Kelly and Joey on the ballot
it will be; without them
it won't be
Mecum said, addressing the committee.
A few of the senators -including senator-at-large ¥Jori Kate -opposed reconsideration of the appeal. She said the Boston Tea Party was at fault and should have gone above and beyond what was required of them, getting extra signatures, to make sure they followed the rules.
This is something that
as a candidate
is your responsibility to find out about
Kate said.
Mecum argued that in previous election information sessions, officials had never mentioned getting extra signatures. I don't think we should have had to ask something that wasn't stated in the rules
he said.
Gibson noted that this was the first time in senate history that such a case has occurred. This was a special and isolated incident
he said. We weren't trying to deceive Student Senate or the board of elections; we used the resources available to us.
Once the committee voted to allow the names on ballots, Felter broke into tears and said, We're really ecstatic. We appreciate everyone that fought so hard for this.
