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A complaint was filed with the election supervisor regarding Gary Null's violation of several election rules. The following is the original complaint followed by National Election Supervisor Terrill Bouricius's ruling: January 1, 2004 Ms. Joy Williams, WBAI Election Supervisor Dear Ms. Williams and Mr. Bouricius 1. Today (Jan. 1, 2004), on Mr. Null’s noon-to-1 pm “Natural Living” program on WBAI, he permitted the endorsement of the candidiacy of Paul DeRienzo by a caller. I can provide an audio recording of that part of the show for your benefit. This occurred shortly after Mr. Null gave a long monologue with his opinions on current station and network issues. Mr. Null did not warn callers either before or after the incident that endorsement of candidates during call-ins is specifically prohibited by election rules, namely: “Station management or staff (paid or unpaid) may not use or permit the use of airtime to campaign for or against any candidate.” 2. On the December 5, 2003 edition of Mr. Null’s program, Mr. Null thanked his executive producer Paul DeRienzo on air for his help in preparing that day’s show. This is in violation of your earlier warning to Mr. Null (according to an email account you provided) that Mr. Null “could not mention Paul's name on the air until after the election was over.” 3. Pacifica election rules state: ”YOUR VOTE CAN CHANGE THINGS Don't just say you care about WBAI,
VOTE!” This in turn takes you to another internal page (http://www.garynull.com/issues/wbai/Elections/Vote.aspx)
with a paragraph that says: “For more information on candidates that we feel bring multi-dimensional
qualities, insights and expertise to these very important positions, click
here.” This link in turn takes the reader to http://www.lookingforward.com/wbai/,
which contains identical language, namely: “The following candidates
bring multi-dimensional qualities, insights and expertise to these very
important positions.” This is followed by the names -- hyperlinked
to statements -- of the following four candidates: This page is administered by Charles (charles@SMARTTRAC.COM), located
at 328 Old Town Road East Setauket, NY 11733, US. The registrant of the
lookingforward.com site is also SmartTrac Computer Systems, Inc. Charles
of SmartTrac.com is also the administrator of www.garynull.com. This information
is publicly available from directNIC http://www.directnic.com/whois/?query=lookingforward.com.
You can check this by typing in the domain names and clicking the WHOIS
option, which allows you to see the names of websites’ owners and
administrators. I have attached pdf files from the garynull.com and lookingforward.com
site to illustrate the situation as of today (January 1). I understand that Mr. Bouricius had responded to a previous complaint
against Mr. Null for including near-identical language DIRECTLY on his
own website, by directing him to remove that language immediately. (If
you would like, I can send you screen shots of Mr. Null’s site as
of October 14, 2003, at which time the direct endorsement was still present.)
The only change since that time is that Mr. Null has moved the illegal
endorsement from his own website to one that is hyperlinked to his site,
and administered by one of his personnel. This is a flagrant violation
of the election rules. I also understand that Ms. Williams told candidate
Ray Laforest several weeks ago that she would investigate the hyperlink,
but Mr. Laforest has not received any further information from Ms. Williams. Please direct Mr. Null immediately and in writing to remove any and all
links to the offending site, and institute disciplinary procedures for
all of these violations against him and against the candidates who have
benefited from his endorsement (several of whom have stated in their online
statements that they are employees or close associates of Mr. Null’s).
Despite your warnings to Mr. Null, he has persisted in defying the rules.
Among other remedies, I believe he should be required to provide equal
time on his shows for all 52 listener candidates to speak in a forum moderated
by Ms. Williams. The campaign rules clearly state: “If any provision is violated, the local and national election supervisors will choose a remedy, up to and including disqualifying candidates or suspending offending staff (paid or unpaid) from the air for the remainder of the election period.” After Mr. Null’s repeated rule violations, it would be grossly unfair not to institute disciplinary measures against him. Please inform me how you intend to address this matter and the result of your discussions with Mr. Null Sincerely, Terry Bouricius wrote: I ruled that he had to stop any reference to his
site, or take down the Terry Bouricius |