Matt Dundon has been issued a minor strike for breaching the rules of the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) elections.
Cian Rynne, Eleanor O’Mahony, Sean Ryan and Michael McDermott were also fined for breaking Electoral Commission rules. All four candidates won’t be allowed campaign on the campus in the Arts Block or the Hamilton between 2pm to 3pm.
Dundon, who is running for the position of Entertainments Officer, will be forbidden from campaigning online between 9am and 9pm on Monday, the day of his first campaign event.
Speaking to The University Times, Dundon explained that DU Comedy shared a standup comedy event he’s involved in on their page, which counts as endorsement. “It’s unfortunate”, Dundon said.
Candidates McDermott, Ryan, Rynne and O’Mahony were fined for putting posters up on boards that are not TCDSU’s.
“The TBSI board is not an SU board, and after council we just put up a poster that wasn’t allowed. I think most people are getting their breaches from that board. It’s alright, we needed the break”, McDermott told The University Times. McDermott is running for both Editor of The University Times and for the role of president.
In an email to The University Times, Rynne, who is running in the communications and marketing race, said: “I knew that the only possible rule I could have broken was a postering rule because I don’t have a big enough campaign to have broken any of the rules.”
“In my defence, I came in this morning and took down about half of my posters to make sure I got the offending poster down. It was just not well labelled which was the SU noticeboard in TBSI, and a bunch of us ended up putting our notices on the wrong one”, added Rynne.
In an email to The University Times Ryan, also running for president, said that hanging the poster on the wrong noticeboard was accidental and that he has “since met with the EC and we’ve a satisfactory conclusion for all invoved [sic]”.
In an email statement to The University Times, O’Mahony said: “It was ambiguous to us where the TCDSU noticeboard was in the building and so it was unfortunately hung on the wrong one. We regret this and we are taking steps to ensure that the rest of our campaigning activity is completely in line with Schedule 3.”
The rules for candidates and their campaigns are set out in schedule three of TCDSU’s constitution. Where a candidate breaches one of those rules, the Electoral Commission will decide whether to issue a strike. Under these rules three minor rule breaches or two major rule breaks will result in the candidate being struck from the ballot.
