After controversy sparked over the alleged misuse of segregated fees by a University of Wisconsin student organization, the student government addressed the use of its funding in elections during a meeting on Wednesday.

A couple members of the Associated Students of Madison student council introduced a new election law regarding segregated fee use in elections and referenda and asked the council to support the law.

Last year, ASM issued an operations grant to the Associated Free Thinkers Ensuring Responsibility for $6,500 in student segregated fees.

AFTER purchased three full-page advertisements in The Badger Herald that encouraged students to vote “no” on a referendum to decide UW’s future involvement in the United Council. While one of the ads ran in Monday’s paper, the other two were withdrawn by members of the organization and never ran in the paper.

Monday, University of Wisconsin sophomore Max Love filed a Student Judiciary lawsuit alleging AFTER violated ASM policies and misused its funding to support a political stance on a referenda issue.

The legislation introduced during the meeting included a new law that clarifies ASM funding resources cannot be used in all forms of elections, including referenda.

Vice Chair Adam Johnson said the inclusion is clearly marked in ASM bylaws, but ASM’s bylaws don’t match many of the other election policies used by the university and various committees.

“We have a whole bunch of election policy that all kind of have the same (idea),” Johnson said. “But when they all kind of say the same thing, there are loopholes (…)”

Through the legislation, Johnson asked the student council to encourage the Student Election Committee to create and implement the new election law which would serve as a “blanket-statement” over all policies.

University Affairs Chair Carl Fergus said the incompatible policies and bylaws have allowed groups on campus, including the Wisconsin Union, to use student segregated fees toward referenda services.

“These loopholes are a problem in our system and have been exploited by many, many, many groups during my time,” Fergus said.

The council will vote on the law during its next meeting.

Chair Brandon Williams said if the council decides to support the election law, the law will be forwarded to the Student Judiciary and the SEC, and a final decision will be made between those bodies.

A new piece of legislation was also introduced by Rules Committee Chair Cale Plamann to give the Student Services Finance Committee the ability to internally handle any minor mistakes made during General Student Service Fund hearings.

Plamann said the intent of the legislation is to prevent cases of minor procedural or non-viewpoint neutrality violations and disputes from being presented in front of the Student Judiciary.

Rep. Sarah Neibart said she was concerned that this move might look like SSFC trying to consolidate power.

Plamann said if the violation at hand concerned a viewpoint neutrality issue, the Student Judiciary would hear the case. However, the reform would allow SSFC to fix minor errors without having to add to the workload of the Student Judiciary, Plamann said.

The council will take up the reform again at its next meeting.