The Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary handed down a decision last week upholding a decision in which four students were deemed ineligible to run for freshman seats on ASM, but did note that a change needs to be made to ASM by-laws.

Two of the students, Austin Evans and Trent Krupp filed a complaint with Student Judiciary after the October ASM elections.

Nick Kanter, commissioner of the student elections commission, made the decision to disqualify the first-year students because they had over 24 credits from Advanced Placement exams, qualifying them as sophomores in University policy.

Evans and Krupp argued that the UW-Madison undergraduate catalogue defines a sophomore as having both 24 credits and 48 grade points. Neither had previous college experience at UW-Madison, and had no grade points.

The Student Judiciary decision, authored by vice-chair Adam Goldstein, noted that while certain university documents specify grade points, the Registrar’s Office sent letters classifying the students as sophomores. The decision also mentioned that the University’s Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) classifies first-students with AP credits as freshman.

However, the decision states that the ASM Student Council elections administration was not aware of this “further method of classification,” and acted with the assumption that credits alone define student classification pursuant to ASM by-laws.

While Student Judiciary acknowledged a need for a change in the definition, a new election rule must be published at least two weeks before the filing date for candidacy declarations, in accordance with ASM by-laws.

The Student Judiciary refused Evans and Krupp’s request to order a new election, but ordered themselves to “evaluate the election rules regarding who is considered to be a freshman and to issue an election rule to that effect,” with input from ASM.