VSG says votes for Newcomer will not be counted

Vanderbilt’s Student Government will not count votes for freshman Jack Newcomer.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Newcomer’s campaign for the student presidency. He decided to run after the initial interest meeting, which meant he wasn’t eligible to be listed as a candidate on the official ballot. Newcomer said he takes “full responsibility for missing that meeting”. However, according to VSG’s constitution, missing the interest meeting should not prevent someone from running as a write-in candidate.

In an email sent to us today, Carly Stone stated “there will be no write-in slot in the general election”. Although there were 66 write-in votes  cast in last year’s general election, and 7 the year before, Stone said last year’s “write-in slot on the ballot was a mistake and in no way a precedent for future elections”.

VSG also said they cannot approve Newcomer’s candidacy as he has committed “major violations” that prevent him from being an eligible write in candidate (even though there is no write-in option?). 

According to the VSG constitution, “all candidates who qualify for approved write-in status shall agree to follow all campaign rules and regulations, both retroactively and prospectively”.

Campaigning officially began at 8am today but Stone claims Newcomer began campaigning before this, in direct violation of VSG’s election statutes.

The VSG constitution says that “any violation committed before the official campaign period begins will be presumed with intent, and will therefore be considered a major violation”.

Stone wrote that Newcomer has referred to his “supporters” many times in various emails, and has directly appealed to the media, both of which constitute major violations.

Newcomer rejects these claims. “I did not get supporters through campaigning”, he said. “I chose to run because of my supporters.” 

“On March 6th, Carly Stone emailed me saying that I was ineligible. VSG did not consider me to be an eligible candidate between the time period March 6-March 13. Now they are claiming that things I did during that time period were “campaigning”. At that point in time, I was under the impression that I was ineligible to campaign.”

Newcomer also said  that he never directly appealed to media. “All media platforms that have covered this reached out to me”.

The Tab Vanderbilt can confirm that our article detailing Newcomer’s campaign was instigated by our reporter, not Newcomer himself. 

Newcomer claims VSG changed their constitution on March 3rd, two days after he announced his campaign. In response to this claim, Stone wrote “we cannot arbitrarily change the rules when we want to, any updated version is simply a product of changes made during a senate meeting. There is no conspiracy with the statues.”

Newcomer said he believes VSG is trying to keep him and his running mate, Dan Stefan, out of the running due to past alcohol violations, rather than because of alleged statute violations.

“My hunch is that they caught wind of our previous alcohol violations with Vanderbilt during the first semester and wanted to hinder us from running, as we have both taken heat from higher-ups in VSG regarding these violations from our past”, he said.

“Dan and I take full responsibility for those violations. However there is nothing in the VSG constitution that says a student who has been disciplined due to an alcohol violation cannot run for a position. We do not think these violations make us bad people, as we both were disciplined for them and moved on, nor do we think this makes us unfit to run for our respective positions. That should be up to the Vanderbilt students, not higher-ups in VSG.”

In response to these specific claims, Carly Stone said “the controversy regarding Jack’s candidacy did not stem from his alcohol violations. The Elections Commission is and was simply following the rules laid out in the statutes.” 

In reference to the availability of a write-in option at the general election, Stone informed us there are “plans to clarify the VSG governing document in regards to this issue after the current election”.