Held vicariously liable for a disability organization's protected speech — on a different candidate's post, about a different race — while the code simultaneously banned him from controlling that speech.
The third strike against Aydin Yelkovan, the one that disqualified him, was filed by Jack Derby. It did not involve anything Yelkovan had said. It did not involve anything about Yelkovan's race. It involved comments written by a disability-justice student organization, on that organization's own Instagram post, directed at a candidate running for a different office entirely.
The organization is called the Blind Snakes Co-Op. On Instagram, the co-op left two comments critical of Mina Nguyen, a candidate for the presidency, arguing that Nguyen had not engaged with disability issues until the end of the campaign. The comments were pointed but substantive, the kind of accountability that advocacy groups routinely press on candidates everywhere:
Derby's complaint did not allege that Yelkovan had written these comments. He did not. Derby alleged that Yelkovan was responsible for them anyway.
The argument relied on an endorsement agreement Yelkovan had signed earlier in the cycle. Like similar agreements signed by other candidates, it included a clause saying the signer would "also take responsibility for any violations the RSO engages in surrounding the election and when promoting my campaign as outlined in the AS Election Code." Derby's theory was that this language made Yelkovan vicariously liable for anything posted by an organization that had endorsed him, regardless of whether the speech had anything to do with his campaign.
In practice, that reading stretches the endorsement agreement past its breaking point. The Blind Snakes Co-Op's comments were not about Yelkovan, about his race, about his platform, or about any candidate he was running against. They were about a presidential candidate's record on disability issues. They did not promote Yelkovan's campaign. They did not mention it. The only link between Yelkovan and the comments was that the co-op had, at some earlier point, endorsed him.
The same Elections Code that Derby wanted to use to hold Yelkovan responsible for an organization's speech also forbids a candidate from coordinating with that organization's speech.
Section 43K(1) prohibits candidates from "planning, distributing, and producing campaign materials, sharing campaign funds and resources, or engaging in collective marketing" with organizations.
The endorsement agreement, read Derby's way, made Yelkovan liable for the organization's speech.
To comply with the agreement, he would have had to control what the co-op posted. To comply with 43K(1), he could not.
Yelkovan's team raised all of this, and more. The comments were substantive political speech, not uncivil personal attack. Section 44(a) applies, by its own text, to "candidates and their representatives," and the Blind Snakes Co-Op is neither. Controlling the co-op's speech was itself prohibited by 43K(1). Punishing a candidate for an outside organization's political speech collides, at a public university, with the First Amendment.
The Electoral Commission found Yelkovan guilty, 7–0. Under the three-strikes structure, the conviction triggered automatic disqualification. He appealed to the Judicial Board, which denied the appeal without holding a hearing.
The denial letter itself contained a small detail worth noting. It was signed "AS Elections Board," the name of the body that had prosecuted the case. When Yelkovan's team raised the error, the Judicial Board called it a "mistake" and said the chair had "seen many cases today." Though the excuse would have been pointless if it were true, it was not. Earley had held a single case that day, she was denying every other appeal!
In its final response, the board (presumably Sofia Earley, as she is the only judicial member with access to the email) wrote:
Yelkovan filed a more detailed brief, citing a line of cases that addresses nearly every aspect of what happened in Case 27: Speiser v. Randall, on conditioning public benefits on the waiver of constitutional rights; Healy v. James, on denying rights to student groups based on their associations; Iota Xi v. George Mason University, on punishing protected expression; College Republicans at SF State v. Reed, on the vagueness of "civility" mandates; Gerlich v. Leath, on viewpoint discrimination in student expression; and Koala v. Khosla, on student government at a public university being bound by the First Amendment. That Judicial Board has failed to issue any type of response.
The consequence of Case 27 extends past one candidate. If the standard it applied were followed consistently, any endorsing organization that publicly questioned any candidate's record could bring that candidate's endorsed rival under punishment. Disability advocates could not advocate. Cultural and political groups could not press candidates they had supported. The cost of an endorsement would become the silence of the group that gave it.
It is also the case where 44(a), the civility clause, finished traveling from a vague provision into a catch-all. Case 24 had used it to reach an "unclear" Instagram Story. Case 27 used it to reach speech the defendant had not written, about a race he was not in, by an organization he was forbidden to control. By the third strike, the clause was no longer policing candidate behavior. It was policing the political speech of the organizations candidates associate with.