DeKALB — The Student Association Supreme Court repealed the disqualification of the #YouMatterNIU ticket for the 2018 elections, finding the candidates and Board of Elections at fault during a Monday hearing.

The candidates in question were accused of forging signatures on their petitions, which the Board of Elections considered to be fraudulent activity and evidence enough for disqualification.

The #YouMatterNIU ticket is comprised of SA Vice President Khiree Cross running for president, Director of Advertising Devin Halicki running for vice president, Director of Student Life Essence Coleman running for treasurer and current SA Treasurer Nathan Hays running for student trustee.

Election Commissioner Anthony Baca approached the Board of Elections March 2 with concerns about questionable signatures. The signatures all appeared to be made by the same person and appeared on each candidate’s petition for the #YouMatterNIU ticket.

“While looking through the signatures, looking through the petitions, we did in fact see a pattern,” said Stephanie Torres, Board of Elections chairperson. “We saw that there were multiple signatures written by what appeared to be a single individual.”

Torres said the election board began reviewing policies, as well as the SA constitution and bylaws and reached three conclusions about how to proceed with possible forgery.

Torres said the election commission considered voiding the “forged” signatures but concluded even in doing so there was still violation of different policies.

The Board also considered inviting the candidates in question to a hearing to better understand their method of gaining signatures but based on evidence ultimately decided the signatures were means for disqualification, Torres said.

However, the election policy does not forbid the use of proxy in acquiring signatures. Proxy is the authorization of someone to be represented by a different individual.

Cross said the law cited by the Board of Elections in the disqualification notice only applies to state partisan elections and not NIU students. Cross also said if the SA expects candidates to follow such laws, it should be clearly stated during candidate’s meetings so they can understand all election laws.

Cross said it not explicitly written in any of the SA’s documents that it needs to adopt Illinois’ election code. He said if the SA did decide to follow the Illinois election code it would prohibit students who are under 18, non-residents of Illinois or undocumented students from voting.

“The Board cannot pick and choose which sanctions it would like to follow on a case by case basis,” Cross said.

Cross said the only means of verifying petition signatures is randomly calling 30 individuals to ask for verbal verification. Rather than calling to verify the signatures, Torres and election board member Erin Hernandez approached Halicki.

“He admitted that some of the signatures were via proxy, but he assured that the signatures could be verified. However, I was never called into a board of elections meeting for proper questioning,” Cross said.

Supreme Court Justices found issue with the ambiguous nature of the language within the SA election policy.

“Each person who signs a petition shall give their printed name, signature, Z-ID number and local phone number,” according to election policy.

Torres said the Board of Elections interpreted the proxy signatures to be forged because based on the election policy, students are the ones who must provide their own information.

Chief Justice Stephen Samuels said neither side had “clean hands”, and both parties should look very closely at this part of the election policy.

“As a majority, we decided that it would have been more logical for the signatures in question to be voided and kind of a harsh jump to straight disqualification,” Samuels said. “So our ruling is to overturn the commission’s decision, with prejudice, with prejudice meaning that this is the end, it cannot be brought again and to restore the candidates as candidates and to restore them in their rightful place as if none of this did not occur.”