This ASWSU election has so far brought four election violation allegations, three of them filed by presidential candidates. This is the highest number since 2011.

These allegations generally accomplish nothing, besides distracting students from important issues on campus. We agree there are some violations that warrant these complaints, but when it comes to ambiguous Twitter use or minor uncertainties in proper location of campaign posters, it is a complete waste of time and energy.

Instead of the candidates focusing on their relationships with the administration and the student body, or the plans by which they will realize their campaign promises, they are targeting one another and shifting the university’s attention away from what really matters — what they will achieve as president and vice president.

We have seen in the most recent national presidential election what comes of this mudslinging: important issues and policy fall by the wayside as a dramatic spectacle seizes voter attention.

Perhaps the ASWSU representatives will continue as politicians and represent people on a much larger scale. Apparently, our generation needs to set an example for the older — petty quarreling is not respectable, nor is it beneficial to the people they hope to represent.

The candidates may have filed these allegations to hold one another accountable in accordance with the bylaws (which are another matter entirely), but it is far more important that they, and the students, focus on platforms instead of trivialities.

As one Evergreen reader, Emerson Michael A. Jr., commented on our ASWSU presidential endorsement of Anders and Amos, “is this the candidate who cheated or the candidate who tattled like a four-year-old on the candidate for cheating?”

If one reader is thinking this, it’s safe to say many others are as well. We sure are.

Instead of targeting each other over insignificant mistakes, the ASWSU presidential tickets need to focus on serving the students.