Ben Williams, a candidate for student body president, will not appeal the Election Commission ruling that his "Ben in Black" signs violate public sign requirements, because he is worried he won't be in the race much longer, Williams confirmed Tuesday.
Williams' campaign is budgeted as spending $2,100, which is $600 more than the $1,500 student body president candidates are allowed to spend on their campaigns. Byron Haney, campaign manager for Williams, thinks Williams will be disqualified in the near future. "Disqualification is imminent," he said.
"Rule Five of the campaign materials section of the Election Regulations clearly exonerates us of any wrong doing, and we feel J-court would agree," Haney said. "We (Williams' campaign) have decided that it is in the best interests of the student body and the University that we drop our case since the Election Commission, in their absolute authority to set fair market values, has found an alternate way to disqualify us from the student body president elections."
The campaign is over budget because of the fair market value rule, in which campaign materials purchased online or outside of the Bryan-College Station area cannot be listed on expense reports as what the campaign paid. Instead, six to 10 prices of the same or similar products will be found and averaged together, and that mean will be listed on the expense report, said Election Commissioner Jim Reed.
"It doesn't matter what kind of price you find on the Internet," he said. "It's based on what the student would have to pay in the Bryan-College Station area."
Williams actually spent $1,229.05 on expensed materials. But items including paper, CDs and CD cases were purchased online and therefore had to be re-priced based on fair market value, which caused the campaign to expense items at 30 to 50 percent higher than what was paid for those items, Haney said.
One campaign-related event at a Bryan movie theater caused confusion as to whether it should be expensed or not. Haney contends that the event was specifically held for campaign staff.
Reed said the Election Commission investigated the event and decided that it was actually for campaigning, which means it would have been expensed.
"Upon the conclusion of our investigation, we found it wasn't a staff event," Reed said.
Though, Reed said he is unaware of Williams' decision to not pursue an appeal, and that a disqualification, which he couldn't definitely say would happen, wouldn't come until after the election.
Final finance reports aren't processed and audited until after the election. Therefore, Reed said he does not know how much Williams or any other candidate running for student government office has spent. Candidates cannot be disqualified until after the election, Reed said.
"I've heard some of the things they are doing, but I'm surprised it is that much," Reed said after learning the total expenses of Williams' campaign.
It is unlikely that Williams will be disqualified before elections conclude, but if he makes it to the runoffs, he would be disqualified at that point.
"We are going to focus on spending our time and efforts on finding a candidate to support who doesn't benefit from our disqualification and push our support behind the candidate who'll best serve the student body," Haney said.
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