Board hears allegations over Twitter use

The Judicial Board held two hearings Tuesday on allegations against a presidential candidate.

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The ASWSU Judicial Board held two hearings yesterday regarding the two election violation allegations filed against presidential candidate Zachary Anders.

The board will decide on the two cases over the next few days and release its ruling at the next ASWSU Senate meeting after it reaches a decision.

Anders’s opponent, Jordan Frost, filed one of the allegations. Both relate to Anders’s Twitter use.

Anders did not attend the first hearing, due to a misunderstanding of emails from ASWSU Chief Justice Eden Kelshaw about when the hearings were. He did attend the second hearing, which centered around any potential defamation that may have resulted from a tweet from his personal Twitter account.

The hearing was not about the Twitter account itself, though justices did ask recurring questions about the Twitter account as well as when the controversial tweet was sent out.

“The process was probably the worst it could have ever been,” Anders said.

The tweet in question came from Anders’s personal Twitter account in which he stated, “Our opponent @votefrostkalt targeted members of campaign last night. We will not let this stand, it was unprofessional and inappropriate.”

The second hearing began with Anders asking Justice Jordan Sykes to recuse himself due to a conflict of interest with Garrett Kalt, Frost’s running mate. Both Sykes and Kalt are both in Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

Sykes told Anders that because Kalt was not involved in the case, it was a different situation that did not require him to recuse himself.

“That line in the sand is not visible,” Anders said.

Johanna Matthynssens, a resident adviser (RA) in Stephenson North, said during a meeting in the CUB junior ballroom that Frost spoke down to her and made her cry.

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Anders said Matthynssens told him that around 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 11, she was very distraught and that Frost had screamed at her that he was disappointed in her for being a part of Anders’ campaign.

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Matthynssens sent a written statement to the ASWSU Judicial Board, giving her side of the incident. The statement was not read at the hearing.

Anders also accused the Frost campaign of setting up campaign staples, such as its staff structure and email, prior to Feb. 10, the official first day for ASWSU presidential campaigns.

“We did not even have Gmail set up,” Anders said. “This is not how the election should be run. This is all very absurd.”

Anders also indicated that whatever the result of the hearings, the damage has already been done to his presidential campaign and character.

“This whole week [has been] people coming up to me, giving me a look like I have done some great injustice against ASWSU,” Anders said. “The word ‘accused’ gets placed on page one, ‘recused’ gets placed on page six.”

Frost introduced two witnesses for his case, Callie Bircher and Claudia Hall, who told the ASWSU Judicial Board they were at the event on Feb. 11 where the alleged encounter between Frost and Matthynssens occurred. Both testified they neither heard nor saw any signs of the alleged encounter.

Frost also alluded to five concerns he had with the Anders tweet about the incident, which he denies occurred the way Anders said it did.

These five concerns included the safety of his campaign workers, the possibility of these allegations derailing his campaign, the integrity of the campaigning process being infringed upon, the warning that Frost alleges was sent to the Anders campaign already and the unfair process.

ASWSU Sen. Savannah Rogers filed the second allegation.

“By switching his personal Twitter to his official,” Rogers said, “this meant that he already had 841 followers whereas all other candidates running, whether it be for senator or for president and vice president, had to create their own where they had to start at zero.”

It has also associated all other of Anders’s personal beliefs and tweets with ASWSU, she said. Rogers said she didn’t believe pictures of date dash shirts, which she said are known to be associated with partying, were representative of WSU or ASWSU.

ASWSU is supposed to be a nonpartisan organization, she said. Anders had several tweets where he had responded to Donald Trump’s tweets and made comments against them, Rogers said.

“ASWSU should not include itself in U.S. political matters,” Rogers said.

Editor’s note: This article has been revised to reflect that Jordan Frost and Justice Dalvin Yarbrough are not members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. Frost’s running mate, Garrett Kalt, is a member, as is Justice Jordan Sykes. This prompted Zachary Anders to ask Sykes to recuse himself due to what he considered a conflict of interest. This article has also been revised to correctly spell Savannah Rogers’s name.