Carlie Hall is contesting the result of the Fresno State Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) presidential election. Hall’s attorney, Bradley Hertz of Los Angeles, specializes in political and election litigation in California.
Hall is requesting an official recount after her loss. She got 22% of the vote in a three-way race. President-elect Camalah Saleh received 46%, and runner-up Guadalupe Zamudio Telles received 31%. Hall’s campaign also requested a recount for her running mates, Ava Tingey and Seth Borba.
In the recount request, Hertz claims on behalf of Hall that Hall received a greater number of legal votes than the two other candidates, that there were errors in ballot handling that affected the election result and cast doubt on accuracy and that misconduct affected the results of the election.
The Collegian reached out to Saleh on Tuesday evening for a statement; she chose not to comment. The Collegian also reached out to University Communications on Wednesday morning and did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The recount demand started off with a concerted media campaign after the election by Hall, including a Sunday interview with KMJ in which she accused Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval of trying to get her thrown out of the election.
When asked by host Alexan Balekian if the election was stolen from her, Hall said yes.
“Martinez was told ‘We need to amend the bylaws, do what we need to do to get them off the ballot,’” Hall said in the interview. “Both of my running mates were told the same thing.”
Martinez then advised Hall to get an attorney to get around this, according to Hall.
Hall also claims that the president disbanded the student court, except for one student. That committee was supposed to oversee her violations, according to the ASI election handbook.
Instead, it was replaced with a committee that met the day before the elections for “hours on end,” according to Hall, with Jiménez-Sandoval at head of it.
Dean Bernadette Muscat was the leader of the committee.
According to the recount request, the misconduct that Hall believes took place includes, but is not limited to:
- That the persons and/or entities conducting the election or canvassing the returns are guilty of malconduct.
- That the purportedly successful candidate was not, at the time of the election, eligible to that office.
- That the purportedly successful candidate offered a bribe or reward for the purpose of procuring her election, or has committed other offenses against the elective franchise.
- That illegal votes were cast in favor of the purportedly successful candidate.
- That eligible voters who attempted to vote for Ms. Hall were denied their right to vote.
- That the persons and/or entities conducting the election or canvassing the returns made errors sufficient to change the result of the election.
- That there was an error in the vote-counting programs or summation of ballot counts sufficient to change the result of the election
Part of the misconduct claims that Saleh was not eligible to be elected to that office at the time of the election.
It also claims that Saleh offered a “bribe or reward” to secure her election win. According to ASI, the bribery allegation against Saleh was cleared and those claims were made with falsified club minutes.
In addition to the recount request, Hertz sent a litigation letter to Amy Allen, the associate dean of Student Involvement, who, at the time of the letter being sent, was the interim ASI director of operations due to the full time director being unable to fulfill his duties. One of Allen’s responsibilities as interim ASI director is to oversee election proceedings.
The letter requests Allen to “preserve evidence” and to stop deleting and moving emails from the account of James Martinez, the full time ASI director.
“We object to your accessing Mr. Martinez’s emails,” Hertz wrote in the letter to Allen. “Your well-documented adverse position toward Ms. Hall and the Next Step slate … makes your access to Mr. Martinez’s emails highly inappropriate and prejudicial to Ms. Hall and others’ rights to due process.”
Allen filed a complaint against Hall after being struck with metal rods from a PRIME inflatable.
Hall said Saleh “allegedly” got more votes. The statement from Hertz says there were illegally cast votes for Saleh during the election.
In the same statement, Hertz wrote that Hall believes that voters in support of Next Step Slate were turned away from the polls.
Hertz says that he hopes that litigation will not be necessary.
Correction: In a previous version of this story Camalah Saleh’s name was misspelled. This story now reflects the correct spelling.
