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Please don’t tell anyone!

Messages to Cherwell this week reveal a current member of Standing Committee acting in violation of Union rules.

Anthony Boutall, a student at St. Edmund Hall, has been canvassing support for the Union elections online.

The soliciting of votes, as well as campaigning by email, is considered electoral malpractice in Union elections.

In a Facebook message sent on November 22, Boutall asked people to ‘get down to the Union on Friday and bring a few friends along to vote the right way’.

Boutall wrote ‘I am running in the Union election for the position of Secretary on Friday this week’, emphasising that ‘this is against the rules to inform you, so PLEASE don’t tell anyone I told you!’

Boutall, who organised the Union’s ‘Acceptable in the 80’s’ Disco’ last Saturday, promised that as Secretary he would be in charge of organising the Union Ball next term, which ‘will be just as fun as Saturday but with about 8 times the budget!’

In other text messages sent earlier this month, he urged recipients to vote against the motion for the creation of a Librarian-elect position, which passed by 228 votes to 14.

In an earlier text message sent on October 22, stating that he is ‘not really allowed to ask’, Boutall goes on to say that if ‘youd [sic] sign the petition against librarian-elect, id [sic] very much appreciate it’.
In another message, sent on November 2, before the second vote for the Librarian-elect position took place, Boutall urged Union members to vote against the ‘wasteful, dodgy motion being put to a poll in the union tonight’.

‘The side of righteousness would very much appreciate it,’ he wrote.
‘Saying that, please dont [sic] tell anyone that i [sic] texted you.’

When contacted for comment regarding the correspondence, Boutall told Cherwell ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The Union takes any allegations of electoral malpractice extremely seriously,’ said a Union spokesperson.

‘The Returning Officer will be investigating any such allegations after the poll closes and invites any member holding evidence of wrongdoing to present it to him directly.’

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