Less than 24 hours after slapping Student Body Presidential candidates Paul Heintz '06 and Brian Martin '06 with campaign sanctions that had suspended Heintz's campaign and frozen Martin's BlitzMail use, the student-run Elections Planning and Advisory Committee decided to restore both candidates' BlitzMail privileges Tuesday evening after holding a hearing on each case.
Additional restrictions on Heintz's campaign, however, remain in effect.
The ban on both candidates' BlitzMail use was officially lifted 24 hours after each was imposed -- Heintz's BlitzMail use was restored at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday morning and Martin's was restored at 2:01 a.m., according to EPAC head David Hankins '05. Heintz's campaign spending, postering and chalking remain hamstrung.
"They made it very clear to us in their hearings today that they took the EPAC sanctions seriously and that before the sanctions were issued they had done what we thought to be a very good job of informing their supporters of the rules for negative campaigning and Blitz repressed recipient lists," Hankins said of EPAC's reversals.
Negative campaigning in supporters' BlitzMail messages led EPAC to sanction Martin's and Heintz's campaigns. Under EPAC campaign rules, candidates are accountable for all campaigning performed on their behalf and negative campaigning -- specifically, character attacks -- is prohibited.
Both of the messages that elicited violations for Heintz and Martin were sent on Panarchy undergraduate society's organizational Blitzmail list, according to Heintz.
Heintz said he and his team will have to work "twice as hard" to "make up for lost time."
"This particular incident was so small and so inconsequential in the greater picture of the election that the idea that it would prevent me from campaigning on the most important day of the election is mind-blowing," Heintz said.
Martin refused to comment on EPAC's decision.
Hankins acknowledged that EPAC's initial decision handicapped Heintz and Martin during a "critical 24 hours," but said, "the point of the sanctions obviously is to have some effect on the way the campaigns shake out. We felt the issues of negative campaigning were serious enough to warrant sanctions in the first place."
In reviewing its decisions, Hankins said the committee considered both candidates' compliance with the sanctions and efforts to keep their supporters, whose actions are the responsibility of the candidates, in conformity with the campaign rules.
"We agreed in principle that the candidates were doing the best job they could do throughout the day to keep their supporters in line," Hankins said, before later adding that "best intentions don't always lead to best results."
Hankins said that after the elections committee suspended both candidates' BlitzMail privileges and limited Heintz's efforts to verbal campaigning, "dozens" of students across campus forwarded messages to EPAC Tuesday, suspecting that the candidates or their supporters were not observing the sanctions on their campaigns. Some students on competing campaigns reported what they suspected were illicit BlitzMail messages to EPAC, Hankins said.
Hankins said Martin's privileges have been fully restored while Heintz's non-Blitz-related activities are still frozen because Heintz had two previous violations while Martin had only one.
"We still thought that Paul's violation was more serious," Hankins said, adding that the "total picture" was considered in EPAC's deliberations.
Late Monday night, EPAC suspended all of Heintz's campaigning through 5 p.m. Wednesday, when the online polls close, after a supporter sent a mass BlitzMail message containing negative campaigning. This violation of campaign rules, which state, "Criticism of other candidates' ideas or platform is allowed; character attacks are not," resulted in the harshest sanctions of this year's race to date.
Although Heintz's campaign BlitzMail privileges are now restored, he is still prohibited from any further campaign spending, chalking and postering.
Heintz said Tuesday morning that he felt EPAC, which holds candidates responsible for all campaigning done by supporters, is not addressing the election seriously.
"EPAC's rules have been unreasonably stringent and near-impossible to follow even though I've been trying my best," Heintz said after the restriction was lifted.
Heintz said it is "nearly impossible" to control the actions of supporters who are not working on his campaign.
Before Martin's own campaign violation was posted to the EPAC BlitzMail bulletin two hours after Heintz's, Martin said late Monday night that being able to manage supporters and prevent them from committing campaign violations is a reflection of the candidates' ability to run the Student Assembly.
"The [EPAC] booklet was very clear," Martin said. "I mean, they spelled out the rules very specifically."
Martin's campaign BlitzMail use was subsequently suspended because of a supporter's negative BlitzMail message early Tuesday morning.
