Ten days after the results of the 2018 ASSU elections were announced, the membership of next year’s sophomore class presidency is still undecided. Now, after the ASSU Elections Commission announced that it is investigating potential campaign violations — including a possible violation regarding a party hosted by the FOREVER ’21 slate — reports have emerged that FOREVER ’21 has dropped out of contestation for the presidency.
“They were just tired of all the election drama,” said a freshman who knows a member of the slate and asked to remain anonymous.
The freshman added that the slate “wanted this whole fiasco over [with].”
Multiple other sources confirmed that the slate has dropped out. Neither the members of FOREVER ’21 nor ASSU Elections Commissioner Paul Serrato ’19 responded to multiple requests for comment on the matter.
FOREVER ’21 has been the subject of scrutiny following the revelation that on April 6 in Otero the slate hosted a party at which alcoholic beverages were served to minors.
If confirmed, this event — a violation of California law, University policy and ASSU campaign regulations — would likely have made them ineligible for the presidency.
Last week, members of the slate acknowledged that they had been “cooperating” with the ASSU Elections Commission, but did not confirm or deny whether they were personally under investigation.
“We really are unsure as to what exactly the ASSU is looking into, as there have been various reports surrounding other slates in this election,” Kiki Velez ’21 said in a written statement submitted to The Daily and cosigned by fellow slate members Rozy Eastaugh ’21, Miles Menafee ’21 and Troy Shen ’21.
Shen, however, told The Daily last week that the slate had “submitted a written account of the incident” to the ASSU.
Claims that two other slates — Twenty-One, Twenty-Fun and The Culture — violated or attempted to violate campaign regulations have also been made in the wake of the election.
Neither those two slates, nor a fourth one — StanFor-U — responded to requests for comment.
FOREVER ’21 is, at present, the only one of the four alleged to have dropped out of the election.
Courtney Douglas contributed to this report.
Contact Brian Contreras at brianc42 ‘at’ stanford.edu.