Candidate is ready to start campaigning again
The SG constitutional council dismissed the 4.5 point violation against Kenny Tracy’s campaign after about an hour of deliberation Thursday night.
A candidate can only be penalized 5 points before he or she is out of the race.
The violation that the elections committee had initially pinned against Tracy had alleged that his campaign manager, Rohail Kazi approached two students and offered them a position on Tracy’s cabinet in exchange for campaign support.
One of the students who brought up the violations was Mitchell Hammonds, a second-year student senate member who testified at Thursday night’s hearing.
Hammonds said Kazi indirectly offered him a position by asking how he felt about being Freshman Council adviser. Hammonds said he redirected the conversation.
Kazi also testified.
“Because of my experience, because of my roles, several members come to me in Student Government,” Kazi said. He added he’s had several Freshman Council members had asked him what their options are in SG.
Trenton Smith, a Freshman Council member, also testified Thursday night about the violations against Tracy’s campaign.
Smith said CJ Lake, a senior adviser for Tracy’s campaign, had asked what his plans were for SG at Carolina After Dark. After responding he was interested in student senate, Lake informed him that there were options in executive cabinet as well.
In addition to dropping Tracy’s violations, the constitutional council ruled that due to procedural mismanagement when the elections committee did not allow a rebuttal of the Tracy campaign to the testimony of Hammonds, the hearing itself was a violations of elections code. The council also ruled that the elections commission does have the right to alter a violation after it has been filed.
“I was extremely confident in my campaign team; I had all the faith in the world in them,” Tracy said. “Obviously, I’m very happy with how it worked. I’m glad it’s an even playing field and justice is coming to light. I’m just ready to get back to campaigning, to be honest.”