Associated Students of Portland State University presidential candidate Ethan Allen Smith’s campaign was challenged by the elections board last week because he had not selected a vice presidential candidate. Due to the board’s interpretation of the ASPSU elections board bylaws, which put in place the rules under which a candidate can run, the elections board informed Smith that he would not be recognized as a candidate unless he selected a running mate. Smith responded by selecting Jeffery Frankenhauser as his vice presidential candidate.
According to the current election board bylaws, “Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates shall run for office as a team. All remaining candidates for offices shall run independently of each other.” Nick Rowe, current ASPSU vice president, explained that the term “shall” is a binding legal term which implies a requirement. The term caused some confusion between ASPSU members and Smith.
Smith explained he wasn’t informed he needed a vice presidential candidate until the candidate orientation process had nearly ended. “I was never informed that I must choose a vice presidential running mate. Not at the orientation and not during the many correspondence I had with the election board through April,” Smith said.
He also added that the news came as a surprise to him: “The judicial board ruled on Tuesday, May 1, that I must choose a running mate. They gave me five hours’ notice to pick a running mate, or I would be removed from the ballot.”
Because the elections board did not consider Smith a candidate, he wasn’t informed of events that involved presidential candidates, including a scheduled meeting with Portland State President Wim Wiewel. Smith was upset by the board’s choice, calling it a “blatant violation” and “inexcusable” in an email to the ASPSU judicial board. “I would, though, like you to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future. To me or any other candidate,” Smith said in his email to the board.
“Apparently both Ethan and myself misinterpreted the word ‘shall’ as should, rather than a hard and fast ‘must.’ The job of interpreting ASPSU documents falls on the shoulders of the Judicial board. That’s exactly why ASPSU has elected to combine the two bodies next year,” said elections board chair Jessie Hansen via email.
“Smith wasn’t a candidate until he registered a vice president,” said Anthony Stine, ASPSU communications director. “Once Smith registered a running mate, he met the eligibility requirement.”
“The judicial board determined that this means that it is absolutely necessary to run with a VP. Rather than have him removed from the campaign, I felt it was much more appropriate to simply allow him the opportunity to orient a candidate for VP rather than eliminate him,” Hansen said.
Hansen defended the election board’s decision, saying that the student body would be better informed and more able to make a decision if they knew who Smith would be selecting as his vice president.
“I think it’s fair for the student body to know who they are electing. Look at it from the flip side; would it be fair for a VP to run alone then appoint a president? Probably not. However unlikely that is, the student body, I feel, is entitled to know their presidential and vice presidential candidate,” Hansen said.
Smith previously told the Vanguard that he intended to “appoint a vice president from the pool of candidates who run for office during the elections” and that he would “only appoint a vice president who is willing to work for ASPSU on a volunteer basis and will refuse to take student fee money during the term.” [“Presidential candidates gear up for May student government elections,” April 17]
The elections board granted Smith an extension in order to give him time to select a vice president and for that candidate to attend an orientation, Hansen said.
According to his official biography, Smith’s new running mate Frankenhauser is “a junior in the graphic design department and, like many other students, is tired of the rising tuition costs and ineffective student government. He believes that ASPSU needs to be taken back by students who have the student body’s real interests at heart.”
Smith confirmed that if elected, Frankenhauser will refuse the leadership award for the vice president position, a move consistent with Smith’s Occupy PSU platform.
“I will only appoint officers who will refuse the absurdly overblown ASPSU leadership award,” Smith said in the same April 17 article. “I will reject any budget that takes more money away from students.”