The graduate student council constitution was violated during representative elections earlier this month, officials found after a defeated candidate filed a written complaint.

The elections process was reviewed after one of the defeated contestants, Beata Blachuta, the current communications director who ran for re-election, filed a formal protest of the elections on April 15.

The elections, which were held on April 1-2, determined who would be next year's representatives in the Graduate and Professional Student Council.

Kirsten Copeland, president of GPSC, said the constitution requires paper ballots in an election. Since the elections were held entirely online, there were no paper ballots available to graduate students and the elections process violated the constitution.

She also said there was a communication problem between the candidates and the graduate students they represent.

The only way for representatives to communicate with the students they represent is through e-mail. The only way for e-mails to be sent to graduate students is to go to the graduate college, which then forwards the e-mails to graduate students, Copeland said.

Because of this, many graduate students did not receive e-mails telling them about the elections until April 3, a day after the elections had already closed.

At that point, GPSC members found that the organization's constitution had been violated.

Since the GPSC constitution does not have any instructions on how to address elections protests, the three elected representatives and two defeated candidates met and developed a plan to solve the elections dilemma.

The plan, approved at an emergency meeting of the GPSC last night, makes two of the five candidates alternates and retains the other three as official representatives.

In addition to Blachuta, the candidates in question were Avnish Kapoor, who won the seat for the College of Agriculture; Karen Sweazea, who won one of two seats for Interdisciplinary Programs; Pete Morris, the incumbent IDP representative, who was re-elected; and Roberto Flores, who was defeated in the election.

Copeland could not comment on which of the five candidates are alternate representatives and which are official representatives.

She said the vote was necessary to determine which of the five candidates would be eligible to run for officer positions in next year's GPSC.

The GPSC constitution only allows official representatives to run for officer elections, which determine the president, administrative vice president, executive vice president and the treasurer.

The constitutional error comes after a problem earlier this month when officials realized there were two conflicting versions of the group's governing body.

Copeland said the constitution is "proving to be a pretty inaccurate document."

Copeland said GPSC will be sending an official notice to graduate students explaining the dispute.