The GUSA Election Appeals Board voted unanimously yesterday to uphold the Election Commission’s decision to disqualify three candidates from this month’s assembly elections.

The decision leaves three of the four junior seats on next year’s assembly vacant. The Election Commission has indicated that it will fill the seats next year in a special election to be run concurrently with elections for the incoming Class of 2009.

Khalil Hibri (MSB ’07), Salik Ishtiaq (SFS ’07) and Julia de Araujo (SFS ’07) were disqualified from this month’s assembly election after an e-mail mentioning their names was sent to members of the Georgetown Social Democrats on election day, allegedly by a member of their campaign staff. The three appealed the decision, saying they had nothing to do with the decision to send the e-mail.

“If we had known, we would have stopped it,” Hibri said.

The three candidates, who ran together, said that they never put together an official campaign staff because their election was uncontested. They also said that the letter only reminded students to vote and never specifically advocated voting for Hibri, Ishtiaq and de Araujo.

But the Appeals Board rejected that argument. In a brief summary of the full decision, Constitutional Council Chair J.B. Horgan (SFS ’05) said that the e-mail included only the names of the three candidates and was thus considered a club endorsement, which is forbidden under the Student Association’s election bylaws.

Horgan also said that even though the e-mail’s sender had not signed all of the necessary forms, he was still considered a member of the candidates’ campaign staff. Under GUSA bylaws, candidates are held responsible for the actions of their staff members.

The Appeals Board will present its full decision to the assembly at its last meeting of the year this evening, when the rest of the election results are expected to be certified. The assembly delayed certification at last week’s meeting because of the election controversy.

The board also recommended in its decision that the Election Commission not fill vacancies with the top three write-in candidates in the election, but instead hold a special election next fall. Mark Mancini (COL ’05), chair of the commission, called a fall election “the most effective way to solve this issue.”

Hibri, Ishtiaq and de Araujo will be eligible to run in that election, and Hibri said before the decision was issued that they intended to do so if their appeal was denied.

GUSA now finds itself in circumstances similar to those under which it departed for the summer last year, overshadowed by election controversy. Its new bylaws, which were a top priority for the year and the object of debate for most of the fall semester, have been thrown into question during the second election cycle after the passage of the revised rules.

Representative Sam Hill (SFS ’05), the only assembly member to vote against the bylaw overhaul approved last year, says he will introduce a proposal to amend Title I of the bylaws at tonight’s meeting, his last as a representative.

Hill said that GUSA violated its own bylaws several times in adjudicating the appeal of the three candidates. The Election Commission and Appeals Board failed to return decisions within the time frames mandated by the bylaws, and the Election Commission still has not disclosed the vote totals from the election, he said.

“I’ve been trying to get them follow the bylaws,” Hill said, adding that he wants to reform the bylaws so that they will be easier for GUSA to follow.

Still, he said it was unlikely that the assembly would be able to adopt his proposal in its entirety at tonight’s meeting.

But GUSA Communications Director Andy Asensio (COL ’06) said that the election controversy would not require that the Student Association significantly amend its bylaws. He said that the Election Commission looked at the bylaws as guidelines, not strict rules, and that there are “not too many problems with the bylaws themselves.”

Asensio said bylaw reform would not be a high priority for the administration in the coming year, except for reforms aimed at bringing more students into the election process.