Ruling on sanctions by UA Judicial Board

[Leonid Grinberg]

Dear Undergrads,

I am writing to you at the request of Jeffrey Sperling and Nathan Varady,
candidates for UA President/Vice President. Following our sanctions against
their campaign, they appealed to the UA Judicial Board, which just issued a
ruling on the matter. The ruling reaffirmed that their campaign violated
the Election Code's prohibition against excessive emailing, but relaxed the
sanction prohibiting electronic communication to one prohibiting email
communication only. The ruling also found that they did *not* violate MIT
policy.[*] Lastly, the ruling allowed Jeffrey and Nathan to request that
the Election Commission send another email to undergraduates explaining the
ruling. They have chosen to exercise that right, and hence this email.
The ruling additionally allowed them to request that we clarify the exact
number of official complaints we received. As the Election Code does not
define "official complaint," we gave the Judicial Board a conservative
estimate of five direct complaints via email, which we deem to be a
substantial number. We received 5-10 verbal complaints as well, but those
can obviously not be verified.
 Thank you for your time, and especially for emailing us with your
concerns. Though this process can sometimes be difficult, it also reminds
us of the passion and care that we all share for a fair and effective
student government.

Best regards,

Leonid Grinberg
Chair, UA Election Commission

[*] The Judicial Board followed up with IS&T, which sent an email that
explained that "[i]f it could be shown that the student had prior knowledge
or had asked and was told that emailing in this manner was unacceptable
then that information might change the decision." Therefore, the Commission
strongly advises all of you to continue refraining from using this method
for communicating with undergraduates in the future.
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