Campaign violations and sanctions against the LaMagna-Andresen ticket for student body president and vice president prevented the Judicial Council from releasing election results as scheduled 12 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Judicial Council.
In a press release issued late Monday night, the Council said it sanctioned junior Olivia LaMagna and sophomore Rohan Andresen for “insulting the opposing ticket in a Facebook post by a supporter.”
The Council asked LaMagna and Andresen to remove the post from Facebook.
Andresen told The Observer the incident was “a miscommunication and a misunderstanding of one of our supporters who did not mean to offend anyone in any way.”
LaMagna said she was grateful for the dedication her and Andresen’s supporters had shown during the campaign process.
“There was absolutely no harm or offense intended, nor did we perceive that anything that any of our supporters have done over the course of this could be in any way, shape or form offensive,” LaMagna said. “We don’t want this to downplay all of the awesome work that we’ve had with the innovative team behind us and we don’t want this to overshadow the impressive work that happened by the hard work of a lot of people over the course of this election.”
The Constitution of the Undergraduate Student Body of the University of Notre Dame du Lac states that election results cannot be released while any allegation or appeal is pending. Candidates may appeal the Election Committee’s decision within 12 hours of the hearing.
Judicial Council stated that the results of Monday’s vote cannot be released until 9:15 a.m. Tuesday at the earliest, according to these rules.
An earlier press release from Judicial Council issued Monday morning said juniors Lauren Vidal and Matthew Devine “exceeded their campaign spending limit by paying for advertising on Facebook for specific posts.”
“As an appropriate sanction, the Election Committee hereby asked the Vidal-Devine campaign to completely delete from Facebook the three advertised posts that caused them to exceed their campaign spending limit,” the press release stated.
According to the Constitution, “A campaign limit is set for all Student body Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates’ tickets at $200.00. … Penalties are up to the discretion of the Election Committee.”
Devine said he and Vidal were looking forward to hearing the vote tally Tuesday.
“Lauren and I are going to get rest tonight,” Devine said. “We’ve been working hard these past few weeks, and we’re excited to hear the results [today].”
