ASUA releases candidates for this week’s special election

The Associated Students of the University of Arizona will hold a special election to determine who will fill the 11 empty senate seats and the executive vice president position for the next academic school year.

Voting will begin Friday at 8 a.m. and continue until 5 p.m. for the special election.

The election was prompted by a lack of senate candidates and the disqualification of an executive vice presidential candidate in the general election held last month.

ASUA Sen. Trey Cox, now running as a special election candidate for executive vice president, was disqualified by Elections Commissioner Diego Alvarez for illegal campaign practices and the accusation of derogatory and harassing speech. The ASUA Elections Comission, however, overturned the disqualification on the basis of lack of evidence to substantiate one of the complaints.

Only three infractions or strikes against the ASUA Elections Code are required for a candidate’s disqualification. Cox received five infractions in the last election cycle, which led to his disqualifcation.

The ASUA Supreme Court reinstated the once-overturned disqualification of the executive vice presidential candidate, calling for the special election.

Current ASUA President Manny Felix submitted an advisory opinion to the supreme court, asking for advice about whether a candidate can run in the special election if they were disqualified in the general election, and if the special election was a completely new election or a continuation of the general election.

Alvarez said people assumed Cox was already allowed to run again, even before the supreme court announced its decision.

Alvarez emphasized he is not the one who made the ruling and that he’s not allowed to talk to the supreme court justices due to a conflict of interest.

For this election, Alvarez said he hopes everyone knows where their facts are coming from and are able to monitor elections from a neutral standpoint.

He added the supreme court is separate from ASUA and is full of students from the James E. Rogers College of Law, who are called upon when the need arises.

The three special election executive vice presidential candidates are Cox, Stefano Saltalamacchia and Jack Emery.

Saltalamacchia said that without his appeal and his going to the supreme court to fight for justice, there wouldn’t be a special election.

“I owe it to myself and I owe it to the students,” Saltalamacchia said.

He said he thinks it is unfair for Cox to run again, since the elections commissioner and supreme court found Cox guilty.

“Like I’ve said earlier, everything that I was accused of was false,” Cox said. “I already won once and I feel like I won by such a big majority that I would almost be letting the student body down if I didn’t run again, because clearly I was the original choice.At the same [time], I really want it.”

Cox said it made sense to him that he is allowed to run again because he thinks theelections code is considerably vague.

“I’m going to be running the cleanest election that I’ve ever ran and at the same time, I’m hoping my opponents do the same,” Cox said. “I’m anticipating that I will probably be attacked with who knows what, but I’m hoping that is not the case.”

Saltalamacchia, on the other hand, is also looking forward to a fair race for the executive vice presidential seat.

“I want the election to be clean, but I think that this election has been drawn out long enough,” Saltalamacchia said. “I think what is most important is that we all, as a student body, do what is right and stand behind one candidate.”

Saltalamacchia said he originally ran for executive vice president because he thinks there is not enough cultural awareness or diversity inclusion spanning across the spectrum of race, sexual orientation or identity in ASUA.

“When you look at ASUA, you see a big group of students, but you don’t see a diverse group of students,” Saltalamacchia said.

Cox said the executive vice president’s main responsibility is to clubs on campus and, while they do chair the senate, he’s really doing it for the clubs.

“All of the projects I have worked on this semester as a senator have been for the clubs and it will help me implement them next year and make sure that they’re sustainable,” Cox said. “Most of my platforms revolve around club marketing, club funding and club web services, and those are all things that I’ve almost accomplished as a senator this year. … I want to make sure that every club is able to utilize them next year if I’m [executive vice president].”

The third executive vice presidential candidate, Emery, who currently serves as ASUA treasurer, declined to comment.

Candidates for the At-large Senate are:

-Peter Marozzi

– Nicholas Beachy

– Anna Woolridge

– Nohe Garcia

– Josh Dobin

– Emily Hastings

– Ben Wifler

– Juwon Chase

– Allison Childress

– Chris Vakula