The University of Wisconsin Student Election Committee met Sunday to discuss several complaints issued following the Associated Students of Madison elections last week, some concerning the breaking of funding rules.

The five SEC members present raised concerns about UW student organization Robbie Earl for ASM 2005, which allegedly used grant funding to campaign for the sophomore hockey player to get elected to a seat on student government. The grant of $200, which was given from open grant funding, was allegedly used to buy campaigning supplies such as chalk and supplies for fliers. However, according to SEC bylaws, candidates cannot use ASM funding to campaign.

“We definitely support write-in candidates,” SEC chair Tim Leonard said. “The only concern is that they had the ASM logo [on the fliers].”

Leonard said he ordered an investigation about the use of the funds last Wednesday. He added that if Earl was found to be uninvolved in the campaign, then the problem is a “non-issue” for the SEC. After Leonard exchanged an e-mail with Earl and other SEC members investigating the issue, it was declared at the meeting that the campaign had taken place unbeknownst to Earl, which makes it difficult for members to determine if the funding was used improperly.

“Robbie Earl had no part in this campaign, so that further complicates things,” SEC member and investigator Kent Heberling said.

Leonard said the SEC will notify the Finance Committee of possible wrong-doing with the funding they issued to the student organization and that the committee will have to take it from there, with the possibility for Student Judiciary to get involved.

“That is as far as we would need to go,” Leonard said.

According to a release issued by the student organization, the use of the ASM logo was essential in order to be able to use ASM’s open fund.

“In the printed copy of the flier and website, with the ASM logos, neither directly stated support for Robbie Earl,” according to the release. “They stated our approved student organization’s name and our belief that someone with hockey abilities could run [for] ASM.”

In addition to the Earl campaign funding concern, SEC members also ruled that UW student Celsa Rodriguez was ineligible for the student graduate seat for Letters and Science.

“She is not registered in that school and therefore cannot take that seat,” Leonard said.

According to bylaws, SEC members then have to appoint the person with the second most amount of votes, however there was a 20-way tie so members decided to send it to Student Judiciary to determine how to decide who should fill the seat.

SEC also voted Ryan Scannell ineligible for his position of non-Letters and Science graduate student seat because he is not in the school. He will however remain in his position of student council representative for College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

His ineligibility posed a problem, however, because Rodriguez was the subsequent person who had been voted for the position. Rodriguez is an undergraduate student, thus making her ineligible. The following people are in a seven-way tie, so Student Judiciary will decide the method of declaring the person for the position.

The final issue SEC members addressed was the results of the Student Council representatives from the School of Engineering. According to Leonard, on the first day of elections there was a lapse of time where seniors from the engineering school were unable to vote for the representatives due to an error in set-up of online ballots.

Leonard said Division of Information Technology technicians informed him that there could not have been more than 49 students who voted in that time. SEC member Emily Schwartz figured that if all 49 students had been seniors and all had voted for the fourth runner-up of the available three seats, that candidate would have won a seat.

However, after calculation was made, members determined that the probability of this happening was so low it was unnecessary to take action.