BYU candidates disqualified from the BYUSA presidential election said they never knew a Web site and election video were infractions of campaign rules.

Sarah Stevenson and Bryce Porter were officially disqualified for violating campaigning rules Thursday afternoon, Feb. ending a month's worth of work.

"We were never informed about a lot of the infractions charged against us," Stevenson said. "The Web site, for example, was one of the major reasons we were disqualified, and we never knew that that was a problem."

Stevenson said they would have gladly taken the Web site down had they been informed of the infraction by the elections committee.

Anne Rumsey, director of student leadership, said they were given repeated warnings about their campaign infractions before they were disqualified.

"We have tried to provide training on multiple bases," Rumsey said. "We have candidate training seminars where we spend a whole Saturday together going over the rules and talking about the philosophies of the campaign."

"I feel like due diligence was done," she said. "I really love and care about all of the candidates, including them."

Vernon Heperi, dean of student life, who made the disqualification official Thursday afternoon, said the decision was fair.

Heperi said an election committee of eight students reviewed the infractions and forwarded their decision to Heperi. He and his appeal committee reviewed the information and made the final decision.

"I think I can say without any concern that the process was definitely fair, based on the standards that are set within the election rules and through the committee review process," Heperi said.

Stevenson said the elections committee didn't perform a thorough job.

"The elections committee is supposed to research each infraction," she said. "For a lot of the infractions we were never contacted and never knew it was a problem."

Stevenson said the decision is frustrating.

"Naturally, Bryce and I are very frustrated about the decision," Stevenson said. "We feel that we ran an open and clean campaign and tried to be honest in all of our dealings with the election committee."

Stevenson admitted they made some mistakes and broke additional rules during the campaign, not including the Web site and election video, but felt they were very open about it.

"We believe some of the infractions that were labeled against us don't merit disqualification," she said.

Stevenson said their campaigning decisions were motivated by trying to think of innovative and alternative methods to get the word out to students.

Stevenson and Porter sent in an appeal for reinstatement but were denied Friday afternoon.

The remaining candidates moving forward in the election are the France Nielson/Greg Moody campaign and the Sam Glanzer/Kim Gardner campaign.



Copyright Brigham Young University 9 Feb 2004