The current YUSU President, Kallum Taylor, has come under scrutiny after breaching YUSU rules regarding his candidacy in the 2013 YUSU Elections, but no formal action regarding rule-breaking has been taken against him. Taylor, re-standing for Presidency, used the official YUSU President Twitter account (@yusuprez) to retweet students endorsing his campaign, and to promote his own standing.
Taylor was unaware that his candidacy was also advertised by the Facebook page ‘James Thompson Photography’, which has over 5,000 ‘likes’ – a breach of YUSU Election rule 23.
The YUSU returning officer said: “It is indeed [James Thompson Photography’s post, pictured] a breach of Rule 23, and we are currently investigating it.
“That [Taylor’s use of the @yusuprez Twitter account to promote his own campaign, pictured below] is also prohibited, and we’ll ensure they are taken down ASAP. An official YUSU account is not something available to all candidates. We have contacted the candidate in question and will ensure the offending post is removed ASAP.”
Rule 23 states: “Candidates may not be publicly endorsed by any third party groups or organisations (including but not limited to political parties, Union committees, societies, sports clubs, etc.).”
And rule 24 continues: “Candidates may not be publicly endorsed by any individual external to the University of York Students’ Union (including but not limited to staff members of the University of York, representatives of commercial organisations, etc.).”However, the returning officer is satisfied that “little advantage has been gained” from Taylor’s mistake and that “no further sanction is necessary or appropriate.”
Taylor told Vision: “I didn’t have a clue about the third party support – it was only until Vision approached me that I knew about it – and it was dealt with immediately. As flattering and reassuring as it is, it’s really not helpful!
“The Twitter mix up was a tiny mix up, and the moment I was told I deleted the two retweets; I haven’t purposefully gone out of my way to promote myself on that account.”
The 2013 Election Rules state: “Candidates are responsible for the actions of anyone acting on their behalf and must ensure that they are aware of these rules and any other regulations that apply.”
Taylor then tweeted: “Loving the elections hype! Please tweet the correct campaigns accounts though if poss when publicly backing! Not the YUSU ones.”
Taylor saw his campaigning privileges withdrawn last year after posting in closed Facebook groups and being endorsed by third-parties, but he still was victorious in the 2012 Elections.
He also along with a few other candidates seems to be ignorant of actual laws of the land around the unauthorised use of registered trademarks.
Last year Kellogs sent Kallum a hell of a lot of Special K free in the post to congratulate him on his 2012 campaign success. Suggests they are enjoying the free publicity!
Classic Kallum.
“I didn’t have a clue about the third party support” Bullshit, he was called up on this last year as well.
The twitter thing may be just sloppy but he should still receive a sanction to redress the imbalance.
He did not break any rules. He was not aware of any third party endorsement. This was misleadingly published before he was aware of it.
Hi Yorkie. We try to be as fair as possible when publishing news articles and I contacted Kallum before this went up on the site. After Kallum had given Vision his quote on the story, we were able to write the piece and publish it. We certainly wouldn’t aim to mislead and it wasn’t published before Kallum was aware of the rule-breaks.
Taylor removed the tweet as soon as he became aware of it. Sounds fair to me.
@ Yes But, Kelloggs were most certainly not happy about it. In fact they were quite angry about, I know as I was one of the people involved in the story. But they had to weigh up the pro’s and con’s. Prosecuting a student would be seen as a big bad company viciously protecting their patent against a student. Had he been say running for a council position the story would have been different. It is still knowingly breaking the law.
There’s still replies to people – and still another retweet from someone saying how theyre keeping kallum….. He’s a joke. Persistent rule breaking but no punishment?
Is there even anyone running against him?
Would James Thompson out of his own freewill choose to promote these two candidates without being asked? Probably not, he must of been asked, by said candidates, that therefore intentional and quite serious.
BANKS 4 PREZ
He has such a big name-recognition advantage that the result is already a foregone conclusion, so I don’t know why he felt it necessary to cheat and thereby cheapen his win even further.
@Name (required)
he has such a big name-recognition advantage because as president he has raised YUSU’s student awareness levels to the highest they’ve probably every been. Kallum and the re-running officers will win because they have done a great job, simple.
A non-story in my opinion. Kallum didn’t know that someone had retweeted and that was dealt with immediately and he didn’t know that James Thompson photography put up a post supporting him, and that was dealt with immediately.
Are you for real? He retweeted it himself from the yusuprez account – he admitted he “accidentally did it from his phone” by mixing the keepkallum account with yusuprez official one.
Get your kallum blinkers off and accept he abused the official YUSU twitter. Joke.
Kelloggs sent him free Special K? For using the most obvious campaign slogan possible? One that was in no way identical to the campaign Rhianna Kinchin used in about 2009.