The same evidence produced opposite outcomes depending on who was accused. And when the commission was told it was violating the Constitution, it chose to keep going.
Enforcement, in theory, is the part of a rule book that makes the rest of it mean something. A rule that is applied to some people and not to others is not really a rule at all; it is a tool. The story told by the files of the 2026 undergraduate elections is the story of a tool.
The clearest version of that story lives in the gap between two cases, Case 13 and Case 25, filed days apart under the same sections of the Elections Code, relying on the same screenshot of the same Instagram voting guide. In Case 13, Ramirez v. Yelkovan, the commission found Aydin Yelkovan guilty. In Case 25, Dixit v. Miranda, the commission dismissed the complaint. The only material variable between the two was the name printed on the cover sheet.
Ramirez alleged that Yelkovan had violated Sections 15(2)(b) and 43(k) of the code by appearing as a collaborator on a voting guide published by Students for Justice in Palestine, a guide that endorsed candidates in the External Affairs VP race.
The same SJP voting guide listed both Yelkovan and Miranda, ranked first and second in the same race. SJP had independently endorsed both. Yelkovan's only action was accepting a collaboration invitation, which he did before any other candidate.
The commission found Yelkovan guilty. It became Strike 1.
A separate complainant filed Case 25 days later. It cited the same two code sections. It relied on the same screenshot of the same voting guide. The only thing that had changed was the name of the defendant.
| Case 13 | Case 25 | |
|---|---|---|
| Defendant | Aydin Yelkovan | Ricardo Miranda |
| Code Cited | Section 15(2)(b), 43(k) | Section 15(2)(b), 43(k) |
| Evidence | SJP voting guide | SJP voting guide |
| Outcome | Guilty, Strike 1 | Dismissed |
Same post. Same code. Same evidence. The only difference was who was on trial.
The commission has, in other settings, shown that it knows how to enforce the code on its own initiative. In Case 10, Rieta v. Guzman, a commissioner personally filed a grievance against a candidate for what he believed was a violation, rather than waiting for an outside complaint. The enforcement instinct existed. It simply was not applied to Miranda. No commissioner filed against him. When the discrepancy was raised on the record, no commissioner acted. By the time an outside student filed Case 25, the commission had already chosen a direction, and it kept walking in it.
The pattern that emerges, convict the challenger and dismiss the incumbent, is what courts describe as viewpoint discrimination. It leaves the commission's claim to neutrality sitting on a record that does not support it.
Selective enforcement is one kind of problem. A different kind of problem is a rule that should not be enforced at all, enforced anyway, after the people enforcing it were told it was unlawful. That is what happened with chalking.
Commissioner Daniel Rieta drafted a restriction on sidewalk chalking as part of Marshall College's local election regulations. The rule did not stay local. The broader Electoral Commission adopted it, and applied it to AS-wide candidates. Because UCSD runs both university-wide and college-level elections, and because each college's campaign manager sits on the Electoral Commission, a restriction one commissioner had written for his own college ended up being enforced across the entire undergraduate population.
In Case 10, Rieta personally filed a grievance against a candidate for chalking, treating it as a campaign violation on the same footing as an illegal flyer.
The trouble is that UCSD already has a policy on chalking. Under the university's Time, Place, and Manner rules, chalk on a sidewalk is a recognized form of student expression. Associated Students is not supposed to add its own restrictions on top.
On April 7, 2026, a student named Daniel Negrete wrote directly to the Elections Manager, Aries Cole, to point out that the commission's chalking rule conflicted with the university's own policy, and with basic First Amendment limits on a public-university body.
"Thanks for letting me know, Daniel."
That was it. Negrete raised the issue again in person, asking Cole to remind the commissioners of their obligation to uphold free speech. The request went nowhere.
This is not a case where the officials in charge were unaware of the constitutional problem. Cole, the Elections Manager, is the professional staff member responsible for the integrity of the process. She was told, in writing, that the commission was enforcing a rule it did not have the authority to create. She was pointed at the specific UCSD policies that said so. She responded once, briefly, and then did nothing. The commissioners continued to treat chalking as a punishable offense.
A commission that punishes candidates for protected expression, and keeps punishing after being told the rule is unconstitutional, is no longer enforcing rules. It is using the rule book as a lever.