Social media can be a wild, wild world: especially during an election cycle.
After reports of the impact social media had on national elections in 2016 and 2018, it is not far fetched to believe that they could also have an impact on consolidated elections.
Contested elections in local markets are scarce. But the 2019 consolidated election of the Mahomet-Seymour School District is highly contested with eight people running for four seats: two within the township and two outside of the township.
Five candidates — Julie Cebulski, Meghan Hennesy, Ken Keefe, Colleen Schultz and Jason Tompkins — along with Mahomet-Seymour School Board President Max McComb, who will hold his seat until the 2021 consolidated election, turned to social media to get campaign information out during their campaign.
Facebook accounts for Jeremy Henrichs, Jenny Park or Lance Raver’s campaigns could not be found.
Cebulski, Keefe and Tompkins set up public-figure profiles, which act more like business accounts on Facebook. Hennesy and Schultz decided to set up personal pages on Facebook to get information out about their campaigns.
Hennesy and Schultz now realize that setting up personal accounts to run their campaigns was not the appropriate way to go about getting information out.
Both women said they wanted to separate their personal life from their campaign so that pictures of their children would be separated from what they knew would be a contentious race.
“I didn’t realize it was against Facebook policy to have multiple Facebook accounts,” Schultz said. “My intention was not to misuse the platform. I just knew that I was not going to run ads, but wanted a way to connect with people in the community while protecting the privacy of my children.”
Hennesy and Schultz learned about the policy on Monday.
On Thursday of last week, Hennesy received a message from Facebook saying that her account had been reported by a “friend,” and that the account she was using for her campaign was being run by an “impostor.” Schultz received the same message from Facebook within 24 hours.
“Our accounts did not get shut down because we have multiple Facebook profiles,” Schultz said. “That’s not what the message said. According to Facebook, they are willing to reinstate my account once they verify that I am not an impostor.”
“Someone reported my account, and then Colleen’s account, because people were liking, sharing and commenting on the things we were posting,” Hennesy said. “In reporting it as an impostor account, our voices and the voices of the community were shut down.”
Hennesy and Schultz lost all long-form content and videos of friends speaking on their behalf. When the accounts were disabled, those who had shared the content also lost access to it through their profile.
“If you don’t like what people have to say, and you don’t have any ideas of your own, the only way to combat the message is to silence people,” Hennesy said.
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Incumbents, Raver, Park and Henrichs do not have Facebook accounts. Mahomet-Seymour School Board President Max McComb has used his public profile page to endorse his choices for the job. McComb also supports Jason Tompkins.
McComb said that while he has a personal profile where he shares information about his personal and professional life as a real estate agent, the “Max McComb: Mahomet-Seymour School Board President” page is also his personal account.
“I have several different Facebook pages that I personally own, including the page I use for school related items,” McComb said.
“Everything I post on any page I own is representative of my personal views and opinions. My public profile pages are used generally to provide information.”
McComb said he chose to endorse the candidates through this platform because it gave him the option to run ads for the candidates.”
Since 2016 both business and personal Facebook accounts offer the options for running ads, although the type of ads from the personal page option are limited.
Throughout the winter months leading up to the April 2 election date, McComb’s ads have included a link to a commentary written by Henrichs, Park, Raver and Tompkins about “How a School Board Really Works,” videos from each candidate that talk about the work they’ve done on the board or why they will be a strong member of the Mahomet-Seymour School Board, and a commentary piece on the rest of the story about school finances by Raver.
Ads running on YouTube are also being paid for by an unknown source. The videos are listed under Tompkins’ page, though.
In accordance with the Illinois State Board of Elections code, each candidate is entitled to spend $5,000 on campaign material before having to report its expenditures to the state or to the persons viewing the advertisement. According to the State Board of Elections, until a candidate or authorized committee meets the expenditure limit, they do not have to disclose who has paid for the ad.
Henrichs, Park, Raver and Tompkins welcome the support of McComb.
Tompkins, who was approached by McComb to run for the vacant in-township seat, said that the candidates did not approach McComb for support, but rather, McComb just offered it.
McComb also reached out to Park as election time rolled around.
“He stated that he enjoyed me being on the board, getting my views, and he’d like to see me run again,” she said.
Park said McComb wouldn’t have done anything without permission from the candidates prior to representing them on social media.
“We didn’t say, ‘Max, we need you to do x,y and z’,’ “Tompkins said. “He just basically said you’ve got my support because he knew me and obviously he knew the others.”
McComb said he did not reach out to Cebulski, Hennesy, Keefe or Schultz when he found out they also submitted petitions for candidacy.
Tompkins said he admires McComb’s support of the Mahomet-Seymour School District.
“Put whatever views you have beside, you’ll be hard pressed to find a person who supports and is a fan of the Mahomet schools as Max McComb,” Tompkins said. “I appreciate a person who can do that.”
Board newcomer Jeremy Henrichs, who was appointed eight months ago, said that having people like Max McComb and Merle Giles on the board to guide the new representatives is helpful.
“This is something I’ve learned from being on the board for the last half year: the people who have been there for a long time know a lot of the intrinsic ins and outs of the district and how the board operates,” Henrichs said.
“Just their experience of how things have gone in the past with various problems that have come up or how they’ve dealt with those things: I think that’s invaluable, especially to someone who is just coming in and you’re trying to figure things out. You’re mostly listening and asking questions.
“I think Max has done a great job as President. I think he can really bring some understanding to things that may be more complex or complicated, mainly because of his experience.”
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But, McComb’s ads have also been met with questions from local constituents.
Once constituents began to comment on McComb’s posts and ads, he began deleting comments and restricting access to his public profile.
“I feel debating on social media is generally unproductive and often inappropriate,” he said.
“Typically individuals that have been banned from any of my pages are individuals who in my opinion are attempting to drag me into a debate, who make harassing or disrespectful comments, or who use inappropriate language. I’m not interested in negativity or spending negative energy on social media.”
One of the ads McComb was running was also removed from Facebook after it was flagged for violating Facebook’s advertising policies.
Before being limited to what she could do and see on McComb’s page, Dewey resident Cara Bane asked, “Shouldn’t you (McComb) let the voters decide for themselves and spread the word about ALL of the candidates?
“I would never have been as concerned as I am if he had just ignored my question,” Bane said.
“Instead, he deleted every comment and put me on ‘view only but share if you agree’ status. That raised a lot of red flags for me.
“It cemented my decision to vote for Colleen Schultz, Meghan Hennesy, Ken Keefe and Julie Cebulski.”
Mahomet resident Kris Rath began to answer questions from constituents who were asking for McComb to inform them of all their options.
She also started taking screenshots of all of the comments being made.
“My instincts were telling me to be cautious and keep a record of events as they unfolded,” she said.
According to Rath, when she returned to the page run by M-S President McComb, she saw that all of the comments and questions from constituents had been deleted.
“He has attempted to censor and silence select constituents that don’t necessarily share his same point of view or who ask questions that he seemingly doesn’t want to answer,” Rath said. “The majority of the questions asked by constituents prior to Mr. McComb deleting our comments were along the lines of why he wasn’t disseminating information about all eight candidates running for four seats on the Board of Education.”
Rath then posted an open letter to McComb on Facebook that was then flagged as harassment and removed from Facebook.
She then posted the screenshots she originally took onto her Facebook page.
“I will not be silenced,” she said.
Rath said she would have felt differently about the whole situation if McComb had used his personal Facebook page to endorse candidates.
“His actions are ones of impropriety, acting for personal gain, and conduct that is positively unethical,” she said. “The laws, policies, standards, and oath he swore to uphold as a member of the Board of Education are available for all to see and cannot — must not — be ignored.”
Whether on Facebook or in the voting booth, Rath believes everyone in Mahomet-Seymour can be heard.
“We all have a voice in this election. Don’t allow your voice to be silenced,” Rath said.
