Last updated Saturday at 7:08 p.m.
The Election Committee of Judicial Council announced Thursday in a press release that it is issuing sanctions in response to campaign misconduct by the Kruszewski-Dunbar ticket.
According to the release, the committee determined that juniors Alex Kruszewski and Julia Dunbar were “in violation of Section 17.1(f)(6)” of the Student Union Constitution, which states, “Candidates may not communicate an endorsement such that it can be construed to represent that of a Residence Hall, Student Union Organization, University department, office or official.”
The release said the Kruszewski-Dunbar ticket is required to rewrite the part of its platform and campaign website that promises a decrease in tuition “to clarify any statements construed as endorsements from University departments, offices or officials.”
“As Alex has been working with administrators on drafting a plan to reduce tuition, we wanted to indicate on our website that decreasing tuition is actually not impossible, but rather it is something that administrators have supported during his work this past year,” the Kruszewski-Dunbar ticket said in a statement emailed to The Observer on Thursday night. “ … We never meant to portray that we were endorsed by the administration of Notre Dame, just that a unique benefit of our team is that we have experience working with administrators and therefore can achieve bold goals. We will change the wording of the platform in order to make this clearer, and tuition reduction will remain a staple item as it is something that we know we can make progress on in the coming year if elected.”
According to the press release, the Judicial Council needs to review and approve the revised platform of the Kruszewski-Dunbar ticket before its publication.
The student senate called an emergency meeting Friday to hear an appeal of the Election Committee’s decision, but it did not reach a quorum and could not hear the appeal. As a result, per section 3.6(f) of the student union constitution, “the decision of the Election Committee shall stand.”
The Kruszewski-Dunbar campaign changed its platform to reflect that “administrators listed … throughout the [campaign’s] website are not to be construed as endorsing Alex [and] Julia as per student union constitution 17.1(f)(6).”
