Incumbent UB Council Student Representative Alika Turton alleged Tuesday evening that she has been harassed and threatened during the course of the ongoing three-way Student Representative election.
“People maybe have been seeing people harassing me and threatening me. It’s been quite a mess for the last week, but I don’t want that to impact the election,” Turton said in an Instagram video.
Turton did not respond to requests for comment from The Spectrum, but she posted a follow-up video Wednesday morning, in which she thanked voters for supporting her during “the harassing and threats that have been coming my way for a long time now.”
She repeated the claims Wednesday night in a campaign email sent to a political science class listserv.
“I really need the support in light of current attempts by some students to promote misinformation about the election and threaten me in an attempt to sway the election results,” Turton wrote in the email.
Turton provided no details or evidence of the alleged harassment and threats, and she did not respond to four requests for comment from The Spectrum.
Her election-related posts on UB’s subreddit have drawn negative comments — including two comments telling Turton to leave UB — but no threats were visible Wednesday evening.
On Saturday, Turton published a separate Reddit post criticizing a Spectrum article about the Council of Advocacy and Leadership (COAL). She characterized the article as “defamation,” “made up” and “fabricate[d] lies that attacked my character.” It is not clear whether her allegations of harassment and threats are related to her criticism of the article.
A University Police representative declined to say whether the agency had received any reports of threats or harassment.
Turton’s opponents, Cameron Kiner and Jack Walsh, said they have not noticed any harassment or threats during the campaign.
Turton’s allegations come during an unusually tense Student Representative election.
Much of the tension relates to a rule change made by UB’s Office of Student Engagement this year, which prohibits candidates from running on a platform or promoting advocacy initiatives. That rule change has drawn sharp criticism from Walsh, whose platform calls for increased transparency and fixes to accessibility issues on UB’s campuses.
“It seems that they’ve decided to change the rules this semester and say that there’s no advocacy allowed, which is very strange because in every year past this hasn’t been an issue,” Walsh said. “They seem to set a rule switch this year.”
Walsh claims Thomas Vane, the Student Engagement employee who manages elections, has given him conflicting messages about whether his platform violates election rules. Walsh says Vane told him during a meeting that his platform violated no rules, but in a subsequent email, Vane cited Walsh’s entire platform as being “in violation” of election rules.
Vane also told Walsh he could not receive endorsements from clubs. Walsh has been endorsed by UB’s chapters of the Students for Justice in Palestine, the Organization of Arab Students and the Muslim Student Association.
Vane declined to comment on Turton's harassment claims, citing federal privacy laws.
Voting began Monday and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comment from Thomas Vane.
Sol Hauser is the senior news editor and can be reached at sol.hauser@ubspectrum.com
Alisha Allison is an assistant news editor and can be reached at alisha.allison@ubspectrum.com
