The ASSU’s special-election results are unknown, and could remain that way permanently if the Undergraduate Senate certifies the Lee / Mefford ticket’s victory in the first executive election tonight.

Last Tuesday, the ASSU Constitutional Council ruled that the special executive election was to continue, but requested that the results be kept confidential. The Elections Commission has so far respected that wish, despite the tense political climate.

“A lot of people are pressuring me, asking me who won, but we are not going to look at the results until we need to,” said ASSU Elections Commissioner Ellie Martin, a junior.

The ball is now in the Senate’s court, Martin added.

“The whole election thing is out of my hands,” she said.

The matter goes before the Senate tonight, when a fresh crop of senators will decide whether to certify last month’s executive election. If the Senate validates the first election results, senior Mikey Lee and junior Dylan Mefford will automatically become president and vice president, explained Constitutional Council Chair Bill Curry, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in geophysics.

If the Senate again chooses to not validate the election results, then the outcome of the special election will be revealed and go before the Senate for certification. However, the Senate’s grounds for refusing to certify the initial election results cannot be tied to the controversy surrounding the flurry of banned e-mails dispatched by affiliates of the Lee / Mefford campaign, because the Council found that line of reasoning to unconstitutionally violate free-press rights.

Senator Katie Salisbury, a freshman, said this decision is going to be a difficult one.

“This really puts the Senate in a tough place, especially since we have only been in office for two weeks and a lot of us weren’t around when the original election was not certified,” she said. “There are problems of continuity but I feel like at this point, we really need to consider the certification based on the merits of the case, not based on the fact that we’ve already had a special election.”

Presidential candidate Mikey Lee, a senior, argued that the Senate needs to certify the original election.

“Now that the Constitutional Council has interpreted e-mails as protected under the ASSU’s own constitution, it would be a mistake for the Senate to not certify,” Lee said.

Senator Adia Gooden, a freshman, agreed that it would be a tough decision and pointed out the consequences of certification.

“If we choose not to certify but take into account the e-mails, then the Constitutional Council can address that again and it could go back and forth,” Gooden said. “If we do choose to certify the last election, everyone who ran for the special elections wasted their time, energy and money. I think it’s really difficult to do because throughout all the discussions to certify or not certify everybody discussed the e-mails. It is very hard to separate how you feel about the overall election and what you should do based on what the Constitutional Council says.”

Despite the repercussions for all candidates, vice presidential candidate Alyssa Schwartz, a sophomore, agreed with the Council’s decision.

“It is really frustrating for everybody because it has worked out miserably,” Schwartz said. “For the Senate to make the decision that the results were not valid, despite 4,000 people choosing, I have a problem with that. At this point there is really no great way for it to turn out, someone is going to be unhappy but once the election results were announced, we should have stuck with that.”

Despite over a month of infighting within the ASSU and uncertainty about next year’s leadership, new Senate Chair Chris Lin predicted that once the results are certain, the Senate will resume business as usual.

“I think that whenever the dust finally settles, the president and vice president, whoever they may be, will be able to serve effectively,” said Lin, a junior.

“This past month should in no way define the ASSU for this upcoming year,” he added. “I know we’ll all be ready to move on, fix the mistakes of the past and get back to work.”

Some students did not share Lin’s optimism.

“Everyone loses: the candidates, the groups and the student body,” said junior Josh Seifert. “The ASSU as a body has lost its legitimacy.”

— Andrew Gay contributed to this article.