Disqualified GUSA candidates Khalil Hibri (SFS ’07) and Geoff Greene (SFS ’08) presented a six-page case to the student association’s Election Appeals Board yesterday, although they said they believe the board is unlikely to overturn their disqualification.

Hibri and Greene, who won last Thursday’s vote for the student association’s presidency and vice presidency by more than 7 percentage points, were disqualified by the Election Commission on Monday because Greene encouraged students in O’Donovan Hall to vote at a laptop. Twister Murchison (SFS ’08) and Salik Ishtiaq (SFS ’07), who received 38.7 percent of the vote, were declared the winners of the election.

In their appeal, Hibri and Greene argued that Election Commissioner Benita Sinnarajah (NHS ’06) gave conflicting instructions regarding the legality of Greene’s actions, and that the commission violated election bylaws by not providing a written rationale for its disqualification within 24 hours after polls closed on Thursday.

But yesterday after their hearing, Hibri and Greene said that the Election Commission told them that they could not appeal based on procedural violations by the commission, and instead had to prove that they had been victims of an active bias.

“If the procedures are not followed, that doesn’t matter,” Greene said. “They can throw out the entire constitution if they want.”

The election bylaws state that all campaign procedures not specifically governed by the bylaws are at the election commissioner’s discretion. On the day before the election, Sinnarajah sent an e-mail to all of the candidates prohibiting the use of laptops to encourage students to vote.

But Greene said that he never read that e-mail and brought his laptop to O’Donovan to encourage turnout. Hibri said that Greene received a phone call from Sinnarajah shortly after he began using the laptop in which Sinnarajah reversed her earlier decision and said that Greene could continue to use his laptop.

“Ms. Sinnarajah . cautioned him to not campaign while getting people to vote,” Hibri said. “Mr. Greene responded that he was just reminding them to vote in general, was not advocating for any particular candidate.”

Sinnarajah declined to comment for the duration of the appeals process. In a letter of disqualification given to Hibri and Greene on Monday, however, the commission suggested that she had not given Greene permission to use a laptop.

“It is unfortunate that the candidate had a misunderstanding during his conversation with the Election Commissioner,” the letter said.

In their appeal, the candidates said that they met with the Election Commission for an information-gathering meeting regarding the laptops, during which disqualification was not mentioned. They said that they were not informed of their disqualification until onday afternoon, more than three days after the end of the election.

Murchison declined to comment on the appeals process.

But Drew Rau (COL ’06), current chief of staff to GUSA President Pravin Rajan (SFS ’07), said that Sinnarajah had made an amendment to that provision of the bylaws prior to the start of the election.

“She stated that Bylaw 20.07 – the one that specifies the timeline for the appeals process – now replaced the `end of the election’ with `the announcement of results’ as the reference point for the timeline,” Rau said.

Rau admitted that Sinnarajah was not given permission in the bylaws to change established rules such as the timeline for appeals procedures. He said that GUSA members would be unlikely to object to that decision, however.

“I don’t imagine that any GUSA member would say she couldn’t do that to make elections fair,” he said.

The disqualification of Hibri and Greene marks the second time in three years that the highest vote-getting ticket has been disqualified by the Election Commission for bylaw violations. In 2004, Kelley Hampton (SFS ’05) and Luis Torres (COL ’05) were disqualified, but that decision was overturned after a two-month appeals process.

In 2004, the GUSA Assembly approved a plan to overhaul the election bylaws in response to the disputed 2004 election. Rau chaired the committee that developed and submitted those reforms.

Hibri and Greene said that if the Election Appeals Board refuses to overturn the Election Commission’s disqualification, they will appeal to the Assembly in the hope that that body will decline to certify the results.

Assembly Chair Ed Duffy (SFS ’07) said that there is no constitutional provision for what would happen if the Assembly voted against certification of the results.

“There’s nothing there,” he said. “If that were to happen, if we were to not certify them, there is no contingency at all.”

Still, Duffy said he did not think that the Assembly would vote against certification.

If the board upholds the Hibri-Greene disqualification, then President-elect Murchison (SFS ’08) and Vice President-elect Ishtiaq (SFS ’07) would be presented to the Assembly as the winners of the election.

In addition to Murchison and Ishtiaq, both of whom have votes on the Assembly, several other members of the Assembly worked for the urchison-Ishtiaq campaign.

Rau said that the Election Appeals Board has until Monday at 3:30 to reach a decision about whether or not to uphold the disqualification. That marks one week after the close of voting, consistent with the appeals schedule delineated in the bylaws.

Rau said that the inauguration of the new president was scheduled for next Tuesday.