Alex Ehmke participated in the Student Body Officer debate on Tuesday afternoon in the Hughes-Trigg Student Forum. (MICHAEL DANSER/The Daily Campus)

Student Body Vice President candidate Alex Ehmke was found not guilty of an election complaint filed against him by a hearing of the Membership Committee on Monday.

The complaint, filed by fellow SBVP candidate Rosa Essaw, alleged that Ehmke slandered her by saying she did not care about the Greek community. The hearing found that his actions did not violate the Election Code.

When asked about the incident, Membership Chair Katherine Ladner told The Daily Campus, “It is not my place to make a statement about this event, but it has been taken care of,” and later directed questions to Ehmke and Essaw.

The complaint revolved around a candidates’ meeting with the Interfraternity Council. Essaw was unable to attend the meeting because she had a night class, where she had a paper due.

Ehmke used her absence to make the point that Essaw did not care about the Greek community since she had spoken to several dozen organizations in the three days before, and that “this was the kind of attention that they could expect from a Vice President if she was elected.”

“I still maintain that I did not lie,” he said. “I expressed my opinion that she did not care about the Greek community.”

But Essaw told The Daily Campus that she does care about the Greek community.

“The problem is, the entire Greek community… doesn’t know that I don’t hate them, and I have a problem with that because I really wouldn’t be running for Vice President of the student body if I didn’t care about organizations on campus such as Greek life, which is a vital component of what makes up SMU,” Essaw said.

Essaw said she has since reached out to members of the Greek community through email. She noted that she has many Greeks on her campaign committee, as well as the fact that she has visited sorority and fraternity houses and introduced herself.

Essaw said she did not intend to get Ehmke disqualified from the election and that she wanted to win “fair and square.” But she said she wanted a formal apology from Ehmke.

Ehmke disapproved of the way Essaw handled the matter, citing his own actions when he felt Essaw had made false or misleading claims about him, which was a phone call.

“I think that formal complaints should only be used in the most egregious of situations,” he said.

Ehmke also said the entire meeting was “incredibly unprofessional” because he was not informed of the hearing until 10 minutes after it was scheduled to start. As a result, Ehmke did not have a chance to prepare a statement or gather witnesses.

“I got a call at 8:10 from someone who wasn’t even on the tribunal, telling me ‘Oh, the tribunal’s about to take place. You need to be here.’ I was eating dinner at the time,” he said.