Hill-Fujimura campaign drops appeal
Associated Students of Oregon State University Presidential Candidate Jack Hill, left, and Vice Presidential Candidate Gretchen Fujimura pose in front of the Memorial Union.
February 26, 2020
Updated on March 3, 2020: Chief Elections Officer Kylie Boenisch of the Elections Committee has provided a response to Jack Hill’s statement, which has been added to this article.
Updated on Feb. 28, 2020: Jack Hill has provided the Barometer with a full statement regarding his attempted bribery and appeal request. Hill’s statement has been added to this article.
Updated on May 10, 2021: Gretchen Fujimura has provided the Barometer with a statement regarding her disassociation from Jack Hill and his attempted bribery. Fujimura’s statement has been added to this article.
Presidential Candidate Jack Hill, and Vice Presidential Candidate Gretchen Fujimura have dropped the appeal to the Judicial Council on the accusation of Major Campaign Violation, Rule 4.
The Hill-Fujimura ticket has been found guilty by the Elections Committee of violating “Harassment, intimidation, bribery or fraud with the intent of affecting the outcome of the election,” and according to the Elections Committee, this decision still stands.
“For the record, I had nothing to do with any alleged conversations between Jack Hill and Dylan Perfect. Jack Hill solely was found to have committed an election violation therefore our combined ticket was found guilty by the Elections Committee,” Fujimura said. “I take issue with the Elections Committee stating that our combined ticket was found guilty as only one person was found guilty of an election violation and that was Jack Hill. In my opinion, the correct verbiage would be to state that our combined ticket was disqualified due to Jack Hill’s election violation thereby leaving me out of it.”
Fujimura said it is crucial to use proper and fair verbiage so as to not misalign those that are innocent, adding “Jack Hill acted alone and yet my name got dragged down with him, which wasn’t fair.”
“I was not thinking when I made those decisions. I should have done everything in my power to make sure that the election was fair and square and considered how offering money was obviously a very bad idea,” Hill said. “It honestly came as a spur of the moment thing where I didn’t want Dylan to be just down money because I understand that money doesn’t fall out of the sky.”
“To clarify, the Elections Committee clearly laid out our process to Jack, and did state that during the appeals process the Hill-Fujimura ticket would not be disqualified or off of the ballot,” said the Election Committee’s Chief Elections Officer, Kylie Boenisch. “We did not encourage him to appeal or not to appeal to see vote counts, but rather outlined the process and the implications of the process.”
Now that the appeal has been dropped, the Elections Committee was able to move forward in calculating the results of the presidential and vice president election, excluding the Hill-Fujimura ticket.
“If it was unclear, I can assure you that I know what I did was wrong and that I would exercise better judgment in the future,” Hill said.
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