In an election process marred by fraud, sanctions and constant bickering between tickets, a Web site took an alternate path by making fun of the "seriousness" of the Student Government Association elections. Call it folly, call it insincere, call it hypocritical-call it "The Truth."

According to Jim Swift, the mind behind the no longer anonymous Web site, SGA Truth had been operating long before he arrived at SLU in the fall of 2002.

"I was involved as a freshman, and when all the older guys left, I picked up the torch," said Swift.

SGA Moderator Phil Lyons noted that "SGA Truth has been around since 1996 as a listserv E-mail group. I actually sent SGA Truth's new domain operator old archives."

When asked how SGA Truth gathers information based on senate meetings or campus "gossip," Swift answered, "It's like a terrorist cell. They have many contributors, with one head. The left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing."

It sounds trivial, and questions of legitimacy have arisen.

"This is, stealing an old high school motto, all about 'Not I, but We.' SGA is taken way too seriously by the members involved, so we wanted to show a lighter side," Swift said.

With the "lighter side" came another problem: how to deal with "iPodgate." Swift said that, although the situation was serious, "We had an obligation to inform the students."

Via an Internet web blog and e-mail, Swift and his network of "informants" said that SGA Truth "indirectly blew the whistle on the fraudulent activity of Andrew Chappelle and Justin Butler. Chappelle came out and admitted guilt before the story was further exposed. We didn't name names initially, but we were considered a media source that knew what was going on."

Swift believed that his medium had an influence "greater than The University News." In fact, Swift said, "SGA Truth had 133,000 hits on the first four days of February."

However, recent questions about an alleged alliance between the Students First ticket and SGA Truth had Phil Lyons believing that SGA Truth was inappropriately connected with members of the Students First ticket.

"I did not suspend the site. The election commission, under the guidance of Mike Herman, requested that the person in charge pull it down for two days leading up to the election because of a grievance that was filed. SGA Truth complied with that request. The decision was not appealed, so I had no ruling on it," Lyons said.

In response to the sanctions placed on the Students First ticket, SGA Truth pulled the Web site over the weekend.

"It was not an admission of guilt," said Swift, "with any association we might have had with Students First."

In response to the sanctions, Swift said, "because they sanctioned Students First, we didn't want to hurt the people running for positions because three of the five on the Students First ticket were being sanctioned. Again, this was not an admission of guilt."

When asked about his association with the students vying for the presidency, Swift said that "[Andrew] Chappelle and I have been friends since freshman year, but his candidacy was not valid."

SGA Truth hounded Chappelle with not being a current member of SGA or being on the executive board of any chartered student organization.

"What Andrew did was wrong and it should have prevented him from running for office," Swift said. "It was the job of SGA Truth to inform the students about the candidate(s), albeit using satire and sarcasm to lighten the tone."

Swift mentioned that he knew in passing Chris Wipke of the I.D.E.A. ticket, and that he has known the campaign manager of Wipke's ticket, Joel Samuels, for quite some time. Swift did not comment on his affiliation, if any, with President-elect Cari Johns.

While this created a light spin on the actual purpose of SGA Truth, Swift avoided revealing if any of his information was inaccurate.

"If we didn't know something that was entirely true, we made sure to give that statement an alleged prefix. We don't exaggerate things, but yes, we do poke fun and take creative liberties when we critique people's stances on issues."

In what could be considered taking advantage of "creative liberties," Swift declared that SGA Truth is "The Onion meets The Daily Show meets CNN." But Swift took a much more serious stance on breaking what Lyons called "one of the biggest stories to hit our campus," the infamous "iPodgate."

"iPodgate was no joke. That was 'Headline News'," said Lyons.

Lyons remarked that he has no plans to "monitor [SGA Truth] because I simply have no authority over it. I read the site on occasion but I am also the moderator of SGA; I probably should read it." Swift, speaking on behalf of SGA Truth, said that "Saint Louis University has taken an anti-free speech route on third parties weighing in on elections, so it's going to be tough." Swift said that "SGA Truth will remain a respected medium for creative people looking to stay informed on the actions of our Student Government Association, and have a little fun while they're at it."