The Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW) announced on Wednesday that two separate Judicial Council decisions were reached regarding Saber Smith and Jessica Petri’s joint presidential and vice presidential campaign, specifically focusing on their social media presence.
“There were initially three complaints filed against us. The initial two were combined into one, leaving two standing decisions from the Judicial Council,” Smith and Petri said.
The first one, entitled “IFC [Interfraternity Council]-CPH [Collegiate Panhellenic Council] Elections Complaint against the Smith-Petri Campaign on April 13th, 2023,” revolved around alleged false claims of IFC endorsement for the Smith-Petri campaign.
Langston Bouma, president of IFC, recalled the accusations in a written grievance.
“The Smith & Petri campaign put us down as an organization that endorsed them when we did not, as they were ranked third on our list. Which was the last of the three tickets at the time. (Note this was before the fourth ticket started),” Bouma wrote.
“They failed to disclose how they were ranked by our council and misrepresented which candidates we preferred and which we did not. By doing this, they have misled voters into believing that we have endorsed them, which is not the case. The Smith and Petri Campaign has directly misrepresented us as a council as well as the members of the Fraternity community that we oversee and who put trust into us to make these decisions.”
Smith and Petri had a different interpretation of the events, saying, “We were ranked by the organizations on their posts titled ‘ASUW Endorsement List,’ so we interpreted this as a ranked endorsement. The complaint informed us that this was not meant to be interpreted this way, but we had no prior indication that IFC/CHP councils did not intend the rankings in that way.”
The ASUW Judicial Council and its chief justice Friday C. Otuya found no specific violation on Smith and Petri’s part, saying, “While the Smith-Petri candidacy was not the first choice of the complainant, they were still a choice offered willingly by the IFC and the CPH to the public without any compulsion or duress. Again, no campus organization or institution is under compulsion to endorse any candidate or rank any candidate.”
“Ultimately, the Judicial Council decided that our interpretation was fair, and our post was not deceptive and was well intended,” Smith and Petri said.
A second complaint was filed against Smith and Petri by Senator Madison Engelby, entitled “Matter of Madison Engelby v. Saber Smith & Jessica Petri Campaign.”
The complaint was filed on April 12 by Engelby, claiming that Smith and Petri had publicly endorsed ASUW senate candidates in a social media post where they allegedly showed support for 16 out of the 27 candidates, which violates the ASUW Elections policy.
In the post, Smith and Petri tagged various senate candidates, saying, “Per ASUW election policies, Saber and Petri can not endorse any candidates. We support many students running in the elections and wish you all the best.”
Vice President Petri was the one who organized the post.
“I posted this on our story because we were getting messages from senate candidates asking for support, and I wanted to be clear and public about the fact that we could not endorse candidates while still offering kind wishes to all people running,” Petri said.
“To us, this was not endorsing the candidates. We thought the story would make the rules clear for all candidates so they did not message us asking for our support because they would know from our public announcement that we could not endorse.”
In response to these allegations, Justice Otuya imposed the following sanctions on the Smith-Petri campaign:
“1. Beginning on 4/13/2023 at 6:00 PM MST, the Smith/Petri Campaign shall not campaign using social media for the next twenty-four hours.”
“2. Beginning on 4/13/2023 at 6:00 PM MST, the Smith/Petri Campaign shall not participate in any official in-person campaign events for the next twenty-four hours.”
On Friday, April 15, Smith and Petri were elected as the 111th president and vice president of ASUW, despite the investigations into their campaign.
The Branding Iron reached out to Otuya for further information. However, he replied that he was unable to comment.
