The Student Government Election Commission advised the UF Supreme Court to disqualify several Students Party candidates.
The commission, lead by Michael Hacker, recommended three Students Party engineering Student Senate candidates — Umair Asghar, Kyle Collins and Max Stein — be disqualified. It also recommended that engineering students' votes for the Students Party executive ticket not be counted.
However, the final decision will fall on the Supreme Court at its meeting on Sunday.
The Unite Party complaint focused on an unauthorized email sent through an academic list-serv.
The issue of authorization was dropped. However, the commission ruled that the Students Party violated the election codes by using IT services for personal commercial purposes. This violates UF's Acceptable Use Policy.
Students Party treasurer candidate Carly Wilson argued that the Acceptable Use Policy states that IT resources can be used for support of student activities.
The Unite Party representatives said the Students Party candidates could personally gain from sending the emails.
"I don't see any grounds to exempt themselves as a political party," said Unite Party general council Casey Stamps.
The Unite Party said the Students Party sent a campaign email through the Institute of Industrial Engineers list-serv.
The Students Party was also found to have violated election codes with two campaign emails that weren't registered correctly. They were fined $1 per email.
One is still being examined by the commission, which is scheduled to meet Friday.
Students Party members said they will immediately appeal the decisions.
