Student Senate president candidate Sara Yasin dropped herself from the ballot Friday because she said she wants to study abroad next semester instead of becoming the Senate president.
To replace her, Greg Doucette stepped in, running against Jon Chichwak. The two were separated by 4.2 percent.
“The constitution regulates officials are elected by a majority vote,” Doucette said. “In the past, the person in second has dropped out. It’s not unprecedented, but just unprecedented that the number-one has dropped out.”
Chichwak disagreed though, saying Doucette should not be allowed to step in.
“Either the runoff should just be me or the books should be re-opened,” Chichwak said.
And as the runoff elections begin today, negative campaigning targeted at both candidates for student senate president could affect the final outcome for the Student Government position.
Doucette said he saw some negative campaigning on east campus that was targeting him. He said there were fliers posted which contained a derogatory pun on his last name.
“[It had] a rather off-colored remark regarding my last name,” Doucette said.
Drexel Heard, Chichwak’s campaign manager, spent the last year touring as an actor and has returned to help out Chichwak.
Heard said although Chichwak’s team has been accused of putting up the fliers, they had nothing to do with it.
“We didn’t authorize any negative campaigning,” he said.
Doucette said he is also aware of a Wolf Web post containing a photograph of Chichwak wearing a UNC hat and a screenshot of Chichwak’s Facebook news feed displaying his removal from a Facebook group entitled, “I go to State
because I didn’t get into Carolina.”
“I absolutely had nothing to do with [the post],” Doucette said.
The Wolf Web post was submitted through the username GrumpyGOP. Ian Booth, a senior in political science, said he is GrumpyGOP.
He said he posted the negative material of Chichwak because Paul Cousins, director of the Office of Student Conduct, removed former SSP candidate James Hankins at the last minute leaving Chichwak unopposed until Sara Yasin and Greg Doucette joined the race later.
Booth said he wanted to motivate the student body to do something about the situation, and when he found the pictures “bouncing around somewhere on the Internet,” he went for it.
“[I knew] that was the thing that would work,” he said.
Chichwak said he has tried not to pay too much attention to the negative campaigning, but he has seen The Wolf Web post and the fliers around campus.
“People are trying to attack my character and who I am,” Chichwak said. “Some are saying I can’t do the job because of misinformed beliefs.”
Heard said the negative campaigning started when the Policies, Rules and Regulations situation created confusion over who exactly was running for SSP.
Doucette echoed Heard’s statement.
He said negative campaigning was inevitable when a candidate was pulled off the ballot three days before elections happened.
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Doucette said.
Yasin said this specific race has produced the most negative campaigning since the SBP race between Will Quick and Will Langley last year.
“All together it just kind of shows how people are just kind of sick of [Student Government], and they just want stuff to change,” Yasin, a junior in textile and apparel management, said.
According to Yasin, it’s really hard to predict the repercussions of negative campaigning because students can’t be sure who is behind the fliers and Web posts.
“Some of it isn’t coming straight from the actual candidates themselves,” Yasin said.