CRO rules that Sheldon Mortimore broke campaign rules by wearing a yellow sweatshirt at Desi Night

Wearing a yellow sweatshirt to a party might not seem like a big deal, but for Sheldon Mortimore it meant that the candidate for the Student Association’s director of equity earned 10 demerit points on Monday.

Chief returning officer Charles Wilson ruled that Mortimore was in violation of directions to not campaign in areas where alcohol was being served by wearing the Value, Voices, Virtue slate’s campaign’s signature yellow colours to Desi Night in the Kings Lounge on March 31.

In the ruling Wilson writes that wearing Mortimore wore a “campaign outfit, which constitutes his campaign brand” and that it was a form of “implicated campaigning.”

Morimore told The Dialog that the reason he was wearing his campaign colours was that he had been wearing them at school all day and didn’t want to go home to change because of the rain and cool temperatures that night.

“I wasn’t handing out flyers, I wasn’t asking people to vote for me, I was not saying the slate name,” said Mortimore “I wasn’t talking about the slate or the campaign at all.”

According to Mortimore he was simply at Desi Night to de-stress and hang out with his friends.

Mortimore has accumulated a total 18 demerit points as he had previously  broken rules around campaign posters. Candidates for executive positions are disqualified if they are given 35 demerit points.

Mortimore received a total of 517 votes, while his opponent Alex Stewart from the Act Now slate won with 582 votes.