Student Government tension highlights BOE, Senate disconnect

Following a successful write-in campaign during the spring student government elections, the Undergraduate Senate voted to strike junior Liam Cuppett from the certified list of elected senators on Feb. 25 due to alleged perjury.

“I think many people I have spoken to about this share thoughts with me,that I think a lot of people are going to have, which is, how in the world is it possible that the Senate is allowed to decide who is elected to its own seats?” Cuppett said.

The UNC Board of Elections initially disqualified Cuppett as a certified candidate on the ballot because he did not meet the required 50 total Onyen-protected online signatures or physical signatures to get him on the ballot. 

At first, five candidates, including Cuppett, formed an informal coalition and gathered some signatures to get on the ballot through a shared Google Sheet. The BOE determined that the Google Sheet did not meet their standards for signature collection. 

Cuppett said the BOE confirmed he could still run as a write-in candidate, needing at least 15 write-in votes to be elected to District 2.

At the Undergraduate Senate meeting, Christopher McClanahan, chairman of the standing committee on rules and the judiciary, brought a motion against Cuppett.

“Intentionally or knowingly providing false information — also known as perjury — is supposed to disqualify you from the entire election cycle,” McClanahan said. “And claiming to the Board of Elections that entries in a Google Sheet are physical signatures very clearly is false information being provided to the Board of Elections.”

McClanahan said the motion was followed by a brief debate, questions and a 25-0 vote to disqualify Cuppett from the certification. 21 senators were absent. 

“It seems like basically the Senate is pretty much just stepping into ground where it’s not allowed and overruling the BOE on a judgement that it is more qualified to make,” Cuppett said.

The Speaker of the 106th Undergraduate Senate Matthew Tweden said he was the only present senator that didn’t vote because he typically only votes as a tiebreaker. McClanahan said Cuppett submitted the Google Sheet signatures to the BOE as physical signatures.

Cuppett said he is willing to admit the signatures were invalid due to their form, but said he never told the BOE that he collected physical signatures. Cuppett said he sent the signatures an electronic spreadsheet.

Section 416 A7 of the Undergraduate Student Body General Statutes explains perjury as an act “worthy of immediate disqualification by the Board of Elections following the appropriate adjudication process.”

A year prior, Samuel Hendrix was disqualified from Senate certification because of issues with his financial disclosure form. 

The form deadline was first extended for all elected senators because Sophie van Duin, the acting chair of the BOE at the time, published the form late. Van Duin said she then granted Hendrix an extra extension because he was left off of the reminder email that was sent to elected senators who had not yet submitted the form.

In an email provided to The DTH that was sent in February 2024, then-speaker of the Undergraduate Senate Andrew Gary wrote to the BOE: “I would advise that in the future the Board exercise greater prudence in granting extensions where they lack such authority.”

“Once the BOE sends us their certified list, it is entirely at the discretion of the Senate to go through the certification process,” Tweden said. “So by a two-thirds majority vote, a name can be struck or added.”

Hendrix, who was a District 1 senator for two years, could not attend the certification meeting because he had COVID-19. He said friends argued on his behalf, and the senators voted 10-5, with 2 abstaining, striking him from certification.

Hendrix said despite some people telling him to sue, he decided not to file a lawsuit to the UNC Student Supreme Court.

“Now that I’m allowed to speak freely, Sam Hendrix should have sued, and I hope Liam does,” van Duin, who is friends with Cuppett, said.

Hendrix said he has not met Cuppett and thinks what the Senate did to him is extremely unfair. After the certification of the recent election, the meeting agenda included a resolution to recognize Elias Larson North, the acting chair of the BOE, for his service.

“I think it’s very disrespectful that, you know, [Cuppett] had all these issues with the Board of Elections, and it was the Board of Elections’ fault because they let a lot of the ball drop this year, and then the same night they removed him as a certified candidate, they gave an award to the chair of the Board of Elections,” Hendrix said.

Cuppett also sued the BOE in the Student Supreme Court during the election due to early voting issues that resulted in a 48-hour election extension.

van Duin said the Hendrix and Cuppett situations feel parallel. 

“It feels targeted, it feels political, and it also feels like just a grave overreach of the Senate,” van Duin said.

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