Since last November, Democrats across the nation have been reeling after their devastating loss to Donald Trump’s resurgent Republican Party. This success however has not removed the liberal and progressive majority that dominates college campuses the nation over; in the electoral realm, these are represented by the likes of Young Democrats.

The Young Democrats at the College of William & Mary are the vanguard for said party on said campus, and they try to put forth a decent and pure image. However, Billy Moncure, a senior at the College and a former officer of the William & Mary Young Democrats (WMYD), along with an anonymous source, has come forth with leaks detailing widespread misconduct and violations of state and local Young Democrats constitutions among the WMYD.

Billy Moncure, a senior at the College, supported Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Presidential Primaries whilst most of the rest of the WMYD executive board supported Hillary Clinton. A transfer from the University of Richmond, Moncure served as the new student chair for the WMYD his junior year. However, he maintains that partisan differences cost him a seat on the executive board his senior year, and he currently does not hold a position

The first of such alleged corruption occurred during the summer 2016 Democratic primary for the Senate of Virginia’s First District, encompassing Williamsburg, the majority of Newport News, parts of York and James City Counties, and parts of Hampton and Suffolk. The primary was in response to the death of the then-incumbent senator John Miller. The election was contested between Monty Mason, the incumbent representative for Virginia’s 93rd house district, encompassing Williamsburg and parts of York and James City Counties as well as Newport News, and Shelly Simonds, a member of the Newport News School Board.

Moncure and an anonymous source state that the WMYD, under the administration of President Jacob Stalnacker, supported Mason’s candidacy over that of Simonds. According to said anonymous source the WMYD executive board gave the Mason campaign direct support whereas none was given to the Simonds campaign. This is evidenced in an email (the header image to this article) send out by the WMYD which openly promotes a Mason campaign event.

Additionally an article from the Flat Hat, the campus newspaper of the College of William & Mary, states that the WMYD supported Mason with no mention of Simonds.

Furthermore the anonymous source goes on to state that the WMYD put forth an image on its Facebook page that openly supported Mason something that the Constitution of the Virginia Young Democrats (VYD) expressly prohibits. The anonymous source confirms that Jamie Nolan Blanco, President of the VYD, ordered the WMYD to remove the image from their page, an order with which they complied; this is confirmed by Moncure.

Moncure said the following:

"A lot of the Execs seem to view it as a logical part of politics to use any party institutions they have power over to stack the deck in favor of the candidates they personally support. They prioritize winning over being welcoming to ALL Democrats and at times seem to not think about how they need to treat primaries differently from general elections against Republican candidates."

Moncure further alleges that there was bias against Sanders supporters in the club proceedings. Due to his support for Sanders he maintains he was not given a position on the WMYD executive board his senior year, an odd thing for former executives. After a member of the executive board resigned due to a withdrawal from the College as a whole, Moncure ran for the position but was faced with rumors that slandered his character and that he was too busy with his involvement in the College pep band to do so, something he staunchly denies. Moncure subsequently won the election. Moncure then informed the College Student Conduct Dean, who begun an investigation of certain individuals within the WMYD. The results of that investigation are confidential.

During that election in October 2016, Moncure pointed out that the WMYD had conducted its internal elections in contravention to the WMYD constitution. The WMYD constitution mandates a notice of two weeks given before elections, whilst the WMYD would only give one. Additionally the VAYD constitution requires members to have paid their dues two weeks in advance of the election, whilst the WMYD allowed payment until said election. This, Moncure states, would imply that the bulk of the WMYD executive board would have been elected illegitimately due to their allowing people to pay their dues the day of the election, and then vote in said election. The special election, which Moncure ran in but lost, was therefore postponed a week to allow compliance with the constitution.

Moncure further alleges that the WMYD executive board engaged in attempted voter suppression of their electorate to further the propagation of their particular ideological clique. Moncure, in an initially unrelated motion proposed a nondiscrimination clause that modified the existing nondiscrimination clause.

The original clause read as such:

“Membership—Membership in this organization shall be open to all persons affiliated with the College of William and Mary who want to further the principals of the Democratic Party. Membership shall not be denied to anyone on account of race, sex, color, or national origin.”

Moncure proposed additions to the non-discrimination clause so that it would read “Membership shall not be denied to anyone on account of race, sex, religious views, gender identity, sexuality, color, or national origin”

This clause was discussed by the executive board and had not been passed earlier because the WMYD executives claimed they did not know how to amend their own constitution, and ultimately denied on the grounds that they had their own amendment. Their new amendment, posed at the same meeting,, did not have religious beliefs or sexuality as protected classes, and in addition added a clause about election rules completely unrelated to the original intent of the amendment.

This amendment codified the need to have attended four events over the course of the semester, and, the most disturbing in Moncure’s view, that any question of voting eligibility would be settled by the WMYD executive board without transparency in how this was determined or who allowed who to vote.

Moving forward, the President of the WMYD had left the College to study abroad, and a new president had to be chosen in a December 2016 special election. Ben Lambert, a sophomore at the College, ran for the WMYD Presidency as a reformist candidate. The WMYD executives had, at a Wednesday meeting, said that applications for the presidency were due three hours after that very meeting ended. Moncure objected, and the submission deadline was extended two days.

Moncure said the following:

"They tried to give people only three hours to decide if they wanted to run for President, until I objected. Then they did everything in their power to coerce people to vote against Ben, much like they did against me when I ran. Clearly they do not want to allow competition."

This election was plagued by irregularities and unconstitutional activity. For one, at first there was no secret ballot until it was pointed out. Additionally, all absentee votes would have to be sent to the main WMYD email address, in full view of the WMYD executive board; said email also contained the votes of all executives, hence revealing to each other how they voted. Additionally, several members, such as Adam Django Benmhend (who has decided to speak on record), have stated that they were not sent emails regarding the elections despite attending meetings and having previously paid dues.

In addition to that, several people who were brought in to the WMYD after the two week dues-paying deadline for voter eligibility were allowed to register to vote anyway; this was achieved by cross-checking voter rolls between the elections involving Moncure and Lambert, an investigation which concluded that two votes for Lambert were not counted. Lambert subsequently lost the election.