There are only three days left to vote, and though Student Union executive board candidates have broken some rules along the campaign trail, they still have a long way to go if they want to rack up enough violation points to compete with previous years’ student politicians.

With the exception of presidential candidate Matt Seidel’s New Deal slate, all candidates have received Student Elections Commission violations. As of last night, current Union Vice President and president hopeful John Dallas Grant and the Team Union slate had 110 violation points, while newcomer and College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Jeanne Mansfield had acquired 175 points, SEC Candidates Coordinator Rachel Katz said.

“Everyone’s running a really clean election this year,” she said.

In past races, candidates racked up violation points. While campaigning unopposed in 2006, School of Education senior and former Union President Brooke Feldman faced SEC sanctions for distributing condoms in dormitories and posting more than 356 posters around Warren Towers before she was authorized to do so. When Feldman was running, the commission fined candidates $10 per flier up to $200 for offending campaign materials. According to the up-to-date Student Elections Code, candidates are fined $1 per instance for removal of campaign materials after set deadlines.

SEC Chairman Ashan Walpita said each slate is afforded 1,000 violation points before it is disqualified from the race altogether, and five commissioners vote on every issue brought before the SEC to determine whether the filed complaint is a violation.

For every violation point, candidates lose 10 cents off their $100 deposit — which was required to register for the official ballot — according to the Elections Code.

Katz said the violations are in place to ensure compliance with both university and Union rules and regulations. Of the complaints against candidates so far, Katz said they have been “filed in good faith,” though some Union members have questioned the legitimacy of the complaints.

Grant said complaints filed against Team Union thus far — nine complaints and four violations in total – have been “absurd.”

“There’s certain people on the other side of the election that kind of have been trying to follow everyone around and tag people for things that they’re not doing wrong,” he said.

“They look at it as a way of hurting the other team,” Grant said. “Rather than using those violations as a way to keep the race clean.”

“[Seidel and I] really just want this to be a clean campaign, because when it gets dirty it really hurts the Student Union as a whole,” Grant said.

Team Union received 10 violation points yesterday for failure to remove campaign fliers from clocks in CAS classrooms. Grant said that although campaigners — not slate members — hung the fliers, the entire slate is responsible for the violation and the entire slate was penalized.

“It’s actually difficult, because you want to have as many people helping you as you can,” he said, adding having a large campaign staff to oversee can get “pretty hard sometimes.”

Katz said Mansfield received all violation points before campaigning even began — 100 points for not attending an initial mandatory information session and 75 points for problems with her electronic ballot submission. She has not broken any rules since campaigning, Katz said.

Mansfield said that, while she thinks the violation points are a “good idea,” it makes it “really restricting” for some campaigning tactics.

“We do have some witty fliers that it would be nice to plaster around,” she said. “It’s kind of frustrating to see Team Union put up fliers in CAS and SMG.”

Mansfield said the deduction from the $100 campaign submission might not deter some candidates from violating rules and noted Team Union might be “just taking that bullet because it’s worth it for the exposure.”

“When it’s 1,000 points you’re trying to get to — 175 is kind of, eeh,” she said.

Mansfield, who has shown up in the George Sherman Union wearing a Clifford the Big Red Dog costume, said the initial goal of her campaign was not to win, but to get students talking about the election and the issues.

“I feel like we’re succeeding in that with our ridiculousness,” she said.

Seidel, who boasts a clean slate that has compiled a grand total of zero violations and complaints, said he was “quite proud” of the fact that his slate was “squeaky clean,” as of a telephone interview last night.

“We really let SEC know our every move,” he said. “We haven’t really done any major advertising or campaigning” without letting SEC know.

Seidel said it is important to follow the Elections Code because if a campaign is riddled with “dirty tricks” it will reinforce the distrust students already have in the Union.

“When you’re in a campaign you want to reach as many people as you can,” he said.