News Article

Ray Redlingshafer and Kathleen Blaney will be named MUSG president-elect as soon as all opportunities of appeal have been exhausted.

According to preliminary election results, Ray Redlingshafer will be named president-elect of Marquette Student Government in the coming days.

Redlingshafer, a junior in the College of Business, and running mate Kathleen Blaney, a junior in the college of nursing, receieved 51.1 percent of the vote.

Their opponents, Giuseppe Pappalardo and Billy Doerrer, sophomores in the College of Arts & Sciences, were docked 5 percent of their votes by the MUSG Election Committee due to campaign violations, leaving them with 42.6 percent of the vote. Pappalardo and Doerrer could appeal the ruling, but the additional 5 percent would not be enough to change the outcome of the election.

Once all opportunities for appeal have been exhausted, the final election results will be announced and posted on the MUSG website, according to a report from the committee.

The results of the election were originally withheld during the scheduled 2:00 p.m. announcement this afternoon due to charges of campaign violations levied against both tickets late Thursday evening.

Redlingshafer and running mate Kathleen Blaney, a College of Nursing junior, filed a complaint charging that Billy Doerrer, Pappalardo's running mate, sent an unsolicited text message in violation of campaign rules. According to the complaint, Doerrer, a College of Arts & Sciences sophomore, sent the following message to a friend of Blaney last night: "I voted for Giuseppe Pappalardo and Billy Doerrer today. You should too at musg.mu.edu/vote. Pass this on to at least 5 friends."

The complaint also alleged other past infractions on the part of the Pappalardo-Doerrer campaign, including mass emails and Facebook messages.

Doerrer also filed a complaint, alleging three members of his campaign received a similar text message in support of the Redlingshafer campaign, stating: "Hey everyone if you haven't voted yet be sure to vote 4 Ray and Kathleen. They r both great people. Also if you r an engineer vote for Scott Emerson."

According to the complaint, the text message was sent by Brad Kwaterski, a sophomore in the College of Engineering. Blaney said Kwaterski has no affiliation with the Redlingshafer/Blaney campaign.

According to the MUSG Web site, MUSG election rules stipulate that candidates and their campaign committees may not distribute "unsolicited mass e-mail or electronic messages." In addition, "solicitation of votes by direct or indirect mailings (electronic or otherwise) or phone calls of any kind" is prohibited.

Jon Dooley, associate dean of student development and MUSG adviser, said he is unaware of a past situation in which MUSG election results have been withheld due to filed complaints.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

Published: 3/27/08 Section: News

Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2

Post a Comment

• Name: (required)
• Email: (required)
• NOTE: Email address will not be published
• Website:

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Email notify will not work because you are not currently logged in.
Click here to quickly login or create a free account.

Type your comment below (html not allowed)

  I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.