As the opposing presidential candidate, I am a little perturbed by the fines against the Loving Slate. I'd like to publicly confirm that the Manship Slate was unaware of these fines.
The elections code is specific about where flyers and posters are allowed, and the code was disregarded. Before the campaign started, the elections board went over the elections code with both slates, and both slates must follow it for a fair and open election.
Regarding the "gentleman's agreement" to which Chris Borkowski referred in yesterday's Daily News article: Mr. Borkowski is the chief of staff/campaign manager of the Loving Slate and has been my only contact there. Last Wednesday at the SGA meeting, Borkowski and I had a pre-campaign conversation.
He said he wanted to establish a "gentleman's agreement," and asked that if anyone from my slate caught his slate breaking any election rules that I should come to him first, and that it would be handled. He said he would offer the same courtesy to my slate. Chris told me that he had a "direct link" with the Daily News and that if I tried to contact them he would know first.
I told him I would agree to come to him first, but that I would not allow him to "cover up" any wrongdoing and all offenses by either slate should become public knowledge. Both slates should run a clean, honest, open and friendly campaign so the student body can then elect the best candidates for the position.
When I make a promise, I stick to it. No one from my slate contacted anyone about the offenses of the Loving Slate. We have no intentions of cheating the system and we know we have run an honest and open campaign. We have not committed any campaign violations and we have followed the rules of the elections code.
Nick Loving: The Daily News quoted you saying, "About 100 posters of the Loving Slate have turned up missing," and that "Every time I find posters missing, I report them." That's odd because no one from my slate was ever contacted about these "missing posters," while Borkowski is preaching about this "gentleman's agreement" between the slates.
Had we known about the fines against you, my slate would have contacted you before going to the press or the elections board. I told Borkowski that I would do so, and I am a man of my word. This disregard for openness between the slates bothers me.
The agreement was not to keep things out of the press, but to let the other slate know it was violating the elections code. I can assure everyone: No one from my slate has ever removed posters or flyers of the Loving Slate, and we are committed to running a clean campaign.
We have faith in the elections board and believe it is remaining impartial throughout the course of this campaign. Its job is to determine what rules are broken and to determine the punishment for each violation. As a public organization, it needs to keep all of this information open to the public.
If the elections board fines my slate for breaking elections code, we want that information to be open to the public. I told Jay Kenworthy, chief reporter of the election, that if we were notified of breaking any elections codes we would notify him as soon as we found out, because we want to reiterate our honesty and openness in this campaign.
I apologize to readers of the Daily News who have lost faith in this election. We hope you can sort through the fact and the fiction so we can put an end to the negativity. If you would like more information about this issue or any others, please contact us. I will answer any questions about our platform, slate or this election process.
Write to Jayson at votemanship@yahoo.com
Visit http://votemanship.com
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