The Undergraduate Student Government Sup-reme Court overturned a campaign violation against Undergraduate Student Government presidential candidate Zach Gingg and his running mate, Ryan Owens, on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the USG election commission cited Gingg and Owens with two campaign violations totaling six points -- three more points meant they would have been disqualified from even running in the race.
The court removed three points for oversized campaign signs due to loopholes in the wording of the election code.
"The court would like nothing more than to uphold the [commission's] decision that oversized signs are a violation of some sort, but there is no statutory language to support that conclusion," the court ruled.
The code does not assess points for breached guidelines not specifically addressed in the code.
Owens, also a political science junior, said he and Gingg did not mean to violate the rules.
"It's a loophole, and we didn't intend to use this loophole for our advantage," Owens said.
The court did uphold the commission decision that gave Gingg and Owens a three-point violation for putting fliers on cars.
The court also reviewed a complaint against presidential candidate Sophie O'Keefe-Zelman and her running mate, Julie Johnson, which was dismissed by the election commission.
Engineering junior Matthew Moellering had filed the complaint against the candidates for fliers left in the USG office by a volunteer.
The court found the decision to be "erroneous," but returned the complaint to the election commission for review.
"Any violation points matter, and of course we're hoping not to get any," said O'Keefe-Zelman, a political science junior.
"We're hoping that for the next two days we won't make any mistakes and that our volunteers won't make any mistakes," she said.
Election commissioner and political science junior Travis Junion said the court has full right to disagree with the election commission's decisions.
"If we made a mistake, that's what it's for," he said. "If the Supreme Court overturns it, that's their ball game. As commissioners, we already made our decision."
None of the candidates will be disqualified if no more than nine points are assessed.
Reach the reporter at jacqueline.shoyeb@asu.edu.
