Members of the Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary ruled Sunday that one of the newly elected Student Council representatives breached election policy in last week's elections.
The court ruled Aaron Werner, a UW-Madison law student who was elected to ASM Student Council last week, illegally sent out a campaign notice using a law school list serve, after another candidate, UW-Madison law student Carl Williams brought a complaint against Werner. But Werner will keep his seat on ASM because the court has deemed his actions non-malicious in nature.\
Judiciary Chair and UW-Madison senior Nick Fox said the judiciary ordered Werner to draft a letter of apology to Williams, a decision in keeping with precedent set regarding the same types of case.
""The remedy for this type of violation is consistent with our previous case law,"" Fox said.
According to ASM election law, Werner needed to not only obtain permission to use the list serve, but also to notify the chair of the Student Elections Commission that he was using a list serve. Werner did obtain permission, but did not notify SEC.
Another candidate and UW-Madison law student, Sachin Dhawan, was included in the suit, because he also sent an unauthorized e-mail through the law school list serve.
Fox said during the case, the court took into account how the breaches of election code affected the election's outcome. He said they concluded that the incident was not significant enough to invalidate the results of the vote, adding the Williams might file an appeal to the decision.
Werner won with 27 votes: Williams received 18 and Dhawan two.
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