Amid charges of campaign misconduct and unfairness, the ASSU Undergraduate Senate last night voted six to two not to certify the highly contested results of the ASSU executive race that took place on April 8 and 9.

A special election will likely take place on Thursday and Friday of next week. This election will be open to new candidates and new slates. Junior Ajani Husbands and sophomore Alyssa Schwartz have already announced that they will not run again as a slate; this does not preclude the possibility that either of them will run with another candidate.

All of the results from the spring election besides the executive race were certified unanimously.

The Senate’s decision has no precedent in recent electoral history. In 2000, there was a executive runoff when neither of the two slates in the race obtained a majority of students’ votes, and last year, the race for Senior Class president was challenged before the Senate. But in neither case were the results of the original election rejected.

Before the executive certification vote, senators were instructed by Senate Chair Josh Shipp, a junior, to base their decision on a clause in the ASSU Constitution that states, “Grounds for not certifying an election shall include, but need not be limited to, deviations that were avoidable and could possibly have affected the outcome of any issue in the election.”

Last week, senators had discussed whether alleged campaign violations this year, including endorsement e-mails sent after the campaign deadline to the Junior and Senior Class president mailing lists on behalf of the slate of senior Mikey Lee and junior Dylan Mefford. At that meeting, the Elections Commission recommended that the election be certified, but the issue of alleged Campaign Practice Code violations and their effect on the results was left unresolved.

“The Elections Commission presented the Undergraduate Senate with all the evidence we had compiled about alleged campaign violations, and we left it up to them to decide whether it was unfair within the constraints imposed by the ASSU Constitution,” said Elections Commissioner Ellie Martin, a junior.

Senators on both sides of the vote expressed serious concern about campaign misconduct.

“I voted not to certify because I felt the elections were getting out of hand the past few years, and this is the only way to get people to take the campaign seriously,” said Senator Sandeep Wasan, a sophomore. “This year was probably the biggest infraction we’ve ever had.”

He added, “It is unfortunate for Mikey and Dylan because they were a great slate and were cooperative during the entire process.”

Senator Chris Lin, a junior, was one of the two dissenting votes in favor of certification. Lin said that he felt that the infractions were not egregious enough to warrant rejecting the election results. However, he said that he did not take the final vote count, which went in favor of the Lee-Mefford slate, into consideration when voting.

Schwartz, who is also a senator, agreed that the Senate’s decision was based on flaws in the process and not the results of the election.

“The decision that was made tonight was not based on who won, but on whether it was a fair election,” she said.

Schwartz and Mefford both abstained from the certification vote to avoid a conflict of interest.

The Senate’s rejection of the executive results means that there will be a special election that is essentially a second election on a condensed time schedule, and election rules stipulate that new slates must be allowed to enter the race. As such, there will be an informational meeting for prospective executive candidates on Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the ASSU offices. According to Martin, candidates will have by noon on Friday, April 23 to declare their intention to run and must submit signed petitions by 5 p.m. the following Tuesday, April 27. Voting is tentatively scheduled to take place on April 29 and 30.

The special election will also have a shortened campaign period. Speaking with The Daily, Martin discussed the Commission’s plans for avoiding campaign misconduct this time around.

“We are going to address the specific areas of the Campaign Practice Code that generated conflict with respect to e-mails and endorsements,” Martin said. “To address the larger issue of just people running wild during campaign week, we are going to have a somewhat stricter structure in place with respect to disqualification of candidates who violate the spirit or the letter of the campaign code.”

Each of the slates will have to make the decision of whether to run again. Just as the special election will allow new candidates, it will also allow individual candidates to break off to form a new slate or to drop out of the race altogether.

When asked why he and Schwartz would not be running together, Husbands replied, “One, we have schedules that when combined would not be good for the ASSU. And this is a recent development.

“Also, for me personally I’ve been disillusioned by this whole election procedure, and it’s put a strain on us. It’s not something we’re looking forward to doing again.”

Of his plans for the special election, Lee said, “I’m still talking to a lot of people and keeping all of the options open, and I expect things will become clearer in the next few days.”

Junior Matthew Henick, the vice-presidential candidate from the Chappie slate, was not sure whether he and running mate Charlie Stockman, a senior, would campaign again.

“We’re gonna ask the Ouiji board,” Henick said.

People involved in the election said they want to see an end to

the controversy.

“I hope there will be a clean and fair special election,” Lee said.