Student Government Uncategorized

REDvolution party put on trial

REDvolution party presidential candidate Charles Haston will be on trial today at 8:30 p.m. in the Senate Chambers of the University Center North to determine whether he will be removed from the Student Government Association election ballot.

The Class A violation was filed against Haston by the Election Commission for falsifying financial disclosure documents, alleging that he omitted possible payments made to host the campaign’s site, uhredvolution.com.

“The candidate (Charles Haston) submitted his party’s financial disclosure document and signed that it was completely accurate. However, the candidate omitted the cost of the campaign website on the form,” the complaint said. “Omitting the cost of the website from the financial disclosure is falsifying the document. Evidence has been brought to the Election Commission providing that this website had to be paid for in order to be ‘live’ at all.”

The website was hosted on GoDaddy.com, which requires payment for hosting. His vice presidential candidate, Erica Tat, was named as the site’s administrator.

Haston has called the allegations “baseless” and “unfounded,” saying that the site was only live for testing purposes. The site was going to be put on campaign materials — wristbands, T-shirts, pamphlets and other campaign literature — to promote REDvolution, but problems with the site could not be resolved, Haston said.

“We never used it, we never pushed it; in fact, we had so many problems with that website, we actually had to take it off all of our campaign materials,” Haston said.

Haston also defended against claims of omitting information from his disclosure forms.

“You can not submit a financial report on something that you have not paid for, nor have you used,” he said.

Chief Elections Commissioner Kendrick Alridge was “obligated” to file the complaint after another candidate brought “convincing” evidence to light.

“When you turn in inaccurate information, someone has to be liable,” Alridge said. “Every other party has turned in their information with no problem, without hesitation. We don’t see why (REDvolution) aren’t doing the same thing.”

The election code denotes campaign finance rules and regulations, and according to it, “no candidate or authorized agent shall knowingly falsify an entry on a financial disclosure statement or in his or her financial records associated with the campaign.” However, Alridge hopes to challenge the “knowingly” language in the code.

“We don’t think that people’s feelings or intents should play a role,” Alridge said. “If that’s the case, then there would be no point in the rules, and someone could say, ‘Oh, I didn’t knowingly do that.’ There would be no repercussions.”

The Election Commission has recommended the removal of Haston and, effectively, Tat from the ballot.

All complaints were reviewed by Attorney General David Ghably, which were found to be merited. The UH SGA Election Trail board will hear the case. Ghably will be the prosecutor in the case.

“I’m not saying that they’re innocent or guilty, I don’t know all the details, but it doesn’t look like anything was intentionally done to try do anything wrong,” Ghably said. “They’ll have their chance to explain themselves, and hopefully it’ll just be a misunderstanding.”

A second complaint was filed against the REDvolution party for failure to submit marketing approval forms for the campaign website. Ghably said that members of the party were “unaware” of its existence. The complaint will also be brought to trial.

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15 Comments

  • Alridge obviously has never read any American criminal statutes, which routinely use words like “intentionally”, “knowingly” or “negligently” to describe the mental state of the accused. In criminal law, this is known as “mens rea” or “state of mind”. It, alongside “actus reas”, is an essential element of nearly all criminal offenses. There are a few offenses that contain no mens rea, which are called strict liability offenses. Such examples include statutory rape. Obviously, the Senate intended to include “knowingly” in the rule, and the trial board should take that into account.

  • This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. If I were Haston, I would be enraged. First of all, the requirement that financial documents “knowingly falsify an entry on a financial disclosure statement” is a high bar to reach. The fact that Kendrick Alridge doesn’t like the language of the code doesn’t really matter. That’s what the code says. If the SGA doesn’t like the code, it should alter it. However, that shouldn’t have any impact on Haston.

    This trial shouldn’t be about whether the knowingly standard is right or not. It should be whether Haston acted purposefully, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. No statement, in this article at least, has challenged Haston’s version of facts, in which he acts recklessly at best.

  • It seems to me as though Mr. Aldridge has a personal vendetta against Mr. Haston and Miss Tat. This would never fly in a court of law.

    • All Aldridge has done this election is to abuse his office in every way possible to tilt the playing field against Redvolution and toward Cougar Pawlitics – making up absurd rules that favor Pawlitics, filing nonsensical and obviously “strategically planned” complaints against Redvolution and rhetorically blasting Redvolution at every opportunity. He has brought shame to his office.

  • Kendrick Alridge and his army of no-nothings have repeatedly shown that they lack the intellectual capacity and maturity to attain such responsibility. Kendrick has on multiple instances attempted to exercise his authority in a manor that is unintelligent and inappropriate. He has a serious lack of knowledge when it comes to what his job actually is and what it entails. Not only does he exhibit inappropriate behavior towards the parties running but also towards students in general and other SGA staff members. There have been several complaints about sexual harassment and inappropriate comments that he has made. He has abused his so called status and attempted to throw himself onto certain female staff. He is not a reliable source, nor is he a reliable President of the Elections Commission. He has taken this role and turned it into something it was never meant to be. These allegations are absolutely absurd and much like Mr. Alridge says there should be repercussions for this party, there should be repercussions for his inexcusable behavior.

    • Kendrick Alridge: Pretends to be Rice Student Just to Debate Conservatives

      By Richard Connelly Mon., Mar. 28 2011 at 4:01 PM

      8 Comments

      Categories: Education

      Kendrick Alridge, Rice wanna-beKendrick Alridge saw that the Rice Young Democrats were going to debate the Rice Conservative Forum, so he signed up to be on the lefties’ team.

      One problem: He wasn’t a Rice student. Or, to be more exact in terms of what he was telling other students, he wasn’t a Rice student for this semester only before returning to his studies at Harvard.

      The campus police are investigating the case, the Rice Thresher reports.

      Alridge, the paper says, has been passing himself off as a Rice student off and on since at least 2007.

      “There was nothing about him that made me question him,” a Young Democrat told theThresher. “He is definitely within the standard deviation of a Rice Student.”

      This isn’t the first time Rice has attracted an unlikely impostor. Back in 2002 we wrote about Rodrigo Fernando Montano, a man who spent a month eating in Rice’s dining halls, going to classes and even running with the track team.

      At least he didn’t try to debate the Conservative Forum.

  • “Goldsmith knew Alridge because he taught violin at Houston’s High School for the Visual and Performing Arts, which Alridge attended. During high school, Alridge was suspected of stealing things from practices rooms on several occasions, Goldsmith said. […] During high school, Alridge also applied and was accepted to a prestigious music camp called Madeline Island. However, his acceptance was quickly rescinded after his audition tape was found to be falsified, Goldsmith said.”

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HqzgS-04Sr8J:www.ricethresher.org/imposter-poses-as-rice-student-1.2131971+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us#.Uwwh6UJdVzA

  • The mere fact that Kendrick is a known liar and is allowed to hold any sort of political seat is absurd. Mr. Alridge, I along with the rest of the people involved would like to know your answer to this very simple question. Why are you so persistent to completely destroy the entire REDvolution party and why are you so persistent to push the agenda of the Cougar Pawlitics party? Lastly, why should anyone, especially the students of this campus, have any reason to believe a word that comes out of your mouth? You have knowingly and willfully lied about being a student at another school in this city, you have knowingly and willfully lied about being a member of a fraternity, and have now lied about a political party running for election. There is no reason to believe is accusations and I for one hope that the impeachment of his position happens immediately.

  • Everyone please be respectful and civilized. its been a tough long night for me. Best of luck to everyone tomorrow. Let the people decide.

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