This post was written by Emily Cahn and Andrew Nacin.
The Student Court agreed to hear Student Association presidential candidate Kyle Boyer’s challenge of his disqualification by the Joint Elections Committee from the runoff election, according to documents posted on its Web site early Wednesday. The hearing will be held Tuesday, March 24.
Tuesday night, Jake Chervinsky, vice chair of the JEC, which oversees SA elections, filed a motion to dismiss Boyer’s complaint. He wrote:
For the plaintiff to be successful in his complaint, he must be able to demonstrate some failure of the Committee to exercise a sound, reasonable and legal process, or some evidence that the Committee’s decision was not founded in fact or law. However, in the course of his “Statement of Facts,” the plaintiff has failed to list a single fact, alleged or admitted, sufficient to establish this burden.
The court did not rule on Chervinsky’s motion when it agreed to hear the case.
The court has accepted an amicus brief supporting Boyer from Ryan Sullivan, a former chief judge of the court. A GW graduate who had also served as vice chair of the JEC, Sullivan wrote that the JEC’s decision was “determined by chance or impulse rather than by necessity or reason.”
Last week, the Joint Elections Committee determined that Boyer failed to report the use of a friend’s car parked on H Street, which he borrowed to display posters, play music and dance on during the general election last month. SA presidential candidates are required to report the fair market value of all items used for their campaign.
The estimated expenditures for the use of the car – which the JEC determined using rental car pricing – pushed Boyer over the $1,000 spending limit by $92.63, adding additional violation points and disqualifying him from the runoff election.
Sullivan argued in his brief that the JEC’s assessment of the fair market value of the car was “not rational or sound under any interpretation.” The JEC, he wrote, “seemingly just picked a random number that was large enough to make Mr. Boyer go over the expenditure limit and kick him off the ballot without any reasoning or rationale for doing so.”
Sullivan also argued that the current JEC Charter allows for the court to undertake an expanded review of the JEC’s findings, well beyond the limited precedent The Hatchet reported Monday. The JEC’s answer to Boyer’s complaint, also filed with the court, reiterated the limited precedent the court has applied to itself over the years.
The hearing is scheduled for the eve of the runoff election, set for March 25 and 26, between sophomores Julie Bindelglass and Nick Polk. The court is likely to render its decision quickly and without postponing the runoff (which has already been postponed once), as the SA’s constitution requires that the election is held within 10 class days of the general election — which is March 25 and 26.
Edit: 7:10 p.m. Sunday, March 21
Boyer’s case will be heard Monday night at 9:30 p.m. in the Marvin Center room 401.
