UTEP’s Student Government Association has delayed announcing the next term’s officials due to election violations by two presidential candidates.

Kyan Kamali and Beto Jimenez are currently facing a deduction of 10% and 5% respectively of their total amount of votes imposed by the SGA’s election commissioners.

“Because we didn’t find any malicious intent on the part of either of those parties, we chose not to disqualify them,” Gerardo Ariel Olivas, one of the four current election commissioners said.

The election commissioners sanctioned Kamali for not removing a pinned tweet which promoted his previous campaign.

They deemed this as a violation of the election code’s article VIII, section 8.05 that states candidates can be disqualified if they campaign before the date and time chosen by the Election Commission.

Olivas explained that, even though Kamali was informed in a candidate information session that the tweet could be considered as pre campaigning, it remained pinned in his Twitter profile.

The election commissioners also sanctioned Jimenez for not ensuring that a student who supported him and was insulting other candidates delete various Instagram and Facebook posts that were seen as negative campaigning.

“Mr. Jimenez tried his best and did very well in reaching out to that student and telling him that he does not endorse, that he doesn’t condone such behavior,” Olivas said. “Then that student actually removed most of his messages from beforehand.”

However, there was one post that was not deleted, which was seen as a violation of the election code’s article VIII, section 8.08, that addresses negative campaigning.

As candidates run for SGA, they are required to follow the election code. If one of the candidates suspects another candidate of violating the code, they can file a violation complaint form for the election commissioners to review.

The election commissioners decide if there should be a penalty and what it will consist of. If either party does not agree with their decision, they can appeal it to UTEP’s Supreme Court.

The only complaint brought before the Supreme Court was the 5% deduction of presidential candidate Jimenez’s votes as the party who are appealing believe that it was enough of a punishment.

The Supreme Court’s officials are deliberating on whether the penalty is going to be approved or modified.

“Hopefully, if the Supreme Court gets it done within this week, we will announce the results by Friday,” Olivas said.