TheSkiffView
ELECTION
Candidate not given fair chance

Political candidates use the public forum to get a better feel of what issues are important to their voters and to assure voters that they best represent our interests.

But what if one candidate doesn’t hear our concerns and cannot express his platform?

This week, Student Government Association presidential candidate Blake Eason was prohibited from speaking to student organizations. Eason, who was the SGA parliamentarian, announced he was stepping down from his office to run for SGA president and the announcement ran as part of a story in the Skiff. Two weeks later, a complaint was filed claiming he violated campaigning rules by saying he was running before the official campaigning time started. Eason appealed the decision.

He is now allowed to cram as many speeches as he can into the three days before elections Tuesday. While it’s nice that Eason’s appeal, it hardly seems like enough. He missed opportunities to meet with many student organizations, what some consider a major part of the campaigning process.

Almost two weeks after the article ran, the complaint was filed, which then took a week to make it to the judiciary board and half of another week to get appealed.

News surrounding Eason’s campaign violations leads to another offense — the right of the public to have all the facts about their candidates. Whether Eason is the right candidate or not is for the voters to decide, but they should at least be given the chance to make an informed decision.