Three days before polls opened for Student Government elections, César Martinez Espinosa, a then-residing Election Supervisory Board co-chairman, e-mailed 21 current and former UT students asking them to campaign for SG presidential candidate Liam O’Rourke.
The Daily Texan acquired the e-mail through an anonymous source. SG President Keshav Rajagopalan — who is listed as a recipient but denies having read the e-mail before it was dropped off anonymously at the SG office March 3, the first day of elections — verified its authenticity.
Rajagopalan said that in order to protect members of a secret on-campus organization of which he and Martinez are members, the e-mail was released to the supervisory board Wednesday night but not distributed to the general population.
“No. 1 priority was ensuring the accountability of the process itself and the integrity of the process,” Rajagopalan said. “And No. 2 was also the nature of this anonymous organization that works on campus and what it does on campus and not exposing the membership.”
The e-mail refers to an organization believed to be the Eyes of Texas, a service organization whose purpose is “to unselfishly serve the University of Texas at Austin,” according to the UT student organization Web site. The organization is referred to as “secret” because the identity of most of its members is unknown.
Rajagopalan said he felt the issue could have been handled without “broadcasting” the contents of the e-mail to the student body.
“Balancing that, we took every measure necessary to make sure the process was fair,” Rajagopalan said. “At that moment, I didn’t feel it necessary to say, ‘Here’s this e-mail.’”
The supervisory board ensures fairness during the annual elections. Supervisory board chairman Charlie Nettles said the board’s election fairness report will be completed in the next few days and will then be presented at the following SG meeting.
Rajagopalan, who said in a March 5 Daily Texan article that Martinez’s resignation was “probably an overreaction,” said Monday that the e-mail also played a role in the chairman’s resignation.
After receiving the e-mail Tuesday and speaking with Martinez, Rajagopalan presented the letter to the Office of the Dean of Students. The office then cleared the e-mail of election-code violations through its legal department before the e-mail reached the supervisory board, he said.
The supervisory board first learned of the e-mail soon before votes were tallied, Nettles said.
“The polls were closed, and I was about to go in and ratify the election,” he said.
Nettles said he did not believe the election results were tainted and that the supervisory board had met on the topic and dismissed it, citing no violations to the election code.
In a statement released Monday night, Martinez said he did not know who would run for SG positions when he was appointed to the board last April and that he felt he would not rule with any biases.
“And when the filing started and I saw that some of my friends were [in] the race, I still decided to remain at the [Election Supervisory Board] because I was confident of the work we had been doing towards having a fair process,” Martinez said in the statement. “Some people might question that I should probably have stepped down when I was aware of that, or when the campaign started. With hindsight, they are probably right. However, I didn’t do it because [I] knew I had been and remained impartial with respect to any decision taken within my duties as ESB Co-Chair.”
SG adviser Soncia Reagins-Lilly, dean of students and senior associate vice president for student affairs, said that because Martinez did not invoke his title in the e-mail, it was seen as a correspondence from a student, not from the supervisory board chair.
“And based on our review, to date, there is no violation,” Reagins-Lilly said. “Students have the right to endorse.”
Reagins-Lilly said the supervisory board receives a “consistent string of complaints” during the election process.
“In my mind, it’s important that we as a community not identify or isolate this complaint from any of the other complaints,” Reagins-Lilly said. “I believe this was one of many.”
O’Rourke said he had not heard of the e-mail until Rajagopalan briefed him on Monday.
“I’m very, very upset,” O’Rourke said. “I can’t believe that [Martinez] sent that e-mail and all of our hard work during the campaign now is being called into question for something we had no control over.”
O’Rourke said he planned to remove the supervisory board appointment from his duties as president and that he would re-evaluate what he called a “broken process.”
Marketing junior Phillip Tau, who ran against O’Rourke in the SG presidential elections, said the e-mail might have prevented a runoff between the candidates.
“I would put my life on it that if it wasn’t for all this helping of Liam and Shara, then I’m pretty sure that there would have been a runoff,” Tau said.
O’Rourke defeated Tau by nearly 4,000 votes, and more than 10,000 students cast their ballots in the race.
Tau said that if the supervisory board was willing to punish the Tau-Stearns campaign Feb. 23 for allegedly changing the name of the Facebook group “Texas did beat OU 45-35, lest we forget” to “VOTE PHILLIP AND SARAH MICHELLE FOR SG President and VP! :)” then it should have also thoroughly investigated the e-mail.
Tau said he believes Rajagopalan should have taken more action.
“I think that if anybody, [Rajagopalan] should have been the one to be like, ‘Hey, we should postpone the election right now or do something about it until we figure out what the extent of this is,’” he said.
Minator Azemi, a University-wide representative-elect and SG’s current administrative director, said he did not think the e-mail could have affected the election and that he was surprised to see his name mentioned in the e-mail.
“I think one person’s mistake and wrong actions has called many people’s candidacies wrongfully into question,” Azemi said. “Based on who it was sent to, I don’t think it could have had any direct effect on the election at all.”
Azemi said Rajagopalan took all of the appropriate actions and that informing the supervisory board brought the subject to the public.
“I think the student body has spoken,” Azemi said.
SG will hold a forum to address election-related questions at its weekly meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Glenn Maloney Room in the Student Services Building.
Attached below is César Martinez Espinosa's e-mail:
"Dear Zesty friends,
I'm writing you today asking for your help. As you know, this year's Student Government election was expected to be more competitive than in the past. It is now looking way more competitive than expected.
Liam has been doing a great campaign but now he really needs all the help we can give him. The elections are this Tuesday and Wednesday and the time to seal this deal has arrived.
Liam's main opposition has been getting traction thanks to them being able to present themselves as something fresh, and helped by three joke candidates, one of which is getting also a lot of support. But fresh they are not, and their lack of knowledge (among many other things) is frankly scary.
We are worried that Liam might be forced into a runoff which, given the current climate on campus, he would have a good chance of losing. But this is not a request just to help a zesty companion. If the alternatives were acceptable in terms of competence, vision and responsibility, I would probably not been sending such an urgent call.
When we were Initiated, we swore in to "take an active interest in watching over student affairs at The University, and in promoting spirit and constructive change by working through our members' representation in all areas of campus life." We swore to be the stewards and guardians of the ideals of unselfish devotion to the University and its traditions. And we swore to "give a little extra efforts to all our endeavors and to promote the high-spirits that make The University of Texas so very special to all of us".
This is the time for action, this is our call. Please, during the next 5 days, join the groups of Liam and Shara if you have not done so yet (and also the ones of our other zesty candidates: our Eye-Prentice, Minator Azemi and Jeff Stein and John Woods). Please use their logos as your profile pictures and please update your status' constantly with their websites and messages.
But, more importantly that all... please get on the phones or emails these next 2-3 days and please call all your friends from all your current and previous organizations and get them to support and vote Liam and the rest. Several of you graduated already, but you still have a lot of weight and following. For the ones who are still on campus -- several of you are already helping out, please redouble your efforts. If you haven't done so yet, please help out.
I'm asking you as a personal favor, a favor for Liam, a favor for Eyes but more importantly, for the University.
Paul, Matt S, Jackie, Brian, Chris -- please call all your contacts at the Business School, Longhorn Singers, BYX, etc -- we need to get all these votes out.
Afolabi, please make calls to your friends in engineering and the African community.
Bill and Johan, please get us all the Liberal Arts organizations.
Johan and Afolabi, please get us international students.
Cody and Bill - please get us all the blazers. Cody - I think it would be great if you were to dance at Monday's game with a Liam-Shara t-shirt.
Brette - please call all your LHB contacts.
Anne and Zuhair, even if you're away... please email and facebook like crazy.
Michael, I think you are already helping Liam getting banners at FIJI - please do the most you can.
Drew and Stephanie --- please pull all your contacts with student athletes and make them to vote.
Chico - all your contacts all
Matt R --- please twitter constantly with all your friends - especially in Spanish
Rachel -- even more? yes.
Jordan -- come to campus to campaign
ZFL
César"
I personally don't appreciate the fact that they feel they have to tell us who to vote for because we might be too stupid to make a right decision.
BrettePS: Just in case you're keeping track, I am also in close communication with Bill. Tell everyone!
Texas Cowboys - Dumb hicks
Friar Society - Eyes of Texas wannabeesThis is where Eyes of Texas draws its members from.P.S. - Tell Everyone
2) Matt R - Matt Reyes (Media Account Manager in Austin, Former President of the Student Events Center)
3) Cody - Cody Cheek (Law student, member of Texas Blazers, did ROTC and the Humanities Honors Program)
4) Chico - Brandon Chicotsky (Regional Director for AIPAC and very agressive networker)
5) Afolabi - Afolabi Ogunnaike (ASA and former Engineering student, works in the Oil and Gas Industry)
6) Zuhair - Zuhair Khan (BHP student and very interested in History, one of the youngest students in BHP)
8) Matt S - Matt Stolhandske (former Business student, currently works for McKinsey, very conservative)
9) Bill - Bill Bacon (Former president of LAC, still in communication with Johan Van Der Walt, Currently works in the Housotn City Hall)
10) Brette - Brette Gardner (Former leader of the Friar Society, TFA member)
11) Brian - Brian Smiley (Currently a BCG consultant)We don't want your organization anymore - don't you get that? All you people - leave UT to the current students. We don't want your influence here. If you want to make a real difference, put your money into a scholarship or professor chair.