The signs in polling places warning voters in Student Government elections not to write in candidates were a result of The Daily Eastern News’ endorsement of junior speech communication major Tim Edwards for student vice president for student affairs, Student Body President Hugh O’Hara said Wednesday.

“Really, until The Daily Eastern News put out an endorsement, we haven’t had a problem,” O’Hara said.

Edwards ran for the position of student vice president for financial affairs with the Common Sense Party. Amy Leonard, a sophomore political science major with the Students’ Voice Party, won the financial affairs position. Lisa Flam, a sophomore journalism and speech communication major, ran unopposed for student vice president for student affairs with the Student’s Voice party and won.

Elections commissioners cited the Election Reform Act of Student Senate’s bylaws, which states petitions for write-in candidates must be available for seven days and turned in the Monday before voting takes place. Polls opened Tuesday and closed Wednesday.

The purpose of write-in applications is to provide an opportunity for students who have not submitted official applications for candidacy to be eligible for office. O’Hara said write-in candidates’ names do not appear on the ballot.

According to Jessica Catto, elections coordinator, the requirements for applying to be a write-in candidate are the same as for a person running on the ballot.

Candidates for write-in and candidates who are on the ballot both have to turn in a nominating petition and a grade release form initialed by the director of eligibility and registration.

The applications to be on the ballot to be a senate member or on the executive board were due last Wednesday, while applications to be a write-in candidate were due Monday by 4 p.m., Catto said.

The possible reason no one applies to be a write-in candidate is because there are the same requirements for write-in as there is to be on the ballot, only the deadline is a few days later, Catto said.

Catto also said neither she nor O’Hara had ever known of there being a write-in candidate during their time at Eastern. Student Senate passed the Elections Reform Act in 1994, Catto said, and the last time the senate amended it was in 2000.

Spaces for write-in candidates appeared on ballots even though no write-in applications had been received, in accordance with the Elections Reform Act, which O’Hara said has been available on the Student Government Web site “as long as I’ve been on senate.”

Copies are also available with applications to run for office. The signs were posted “so people would know that their vote doesn’t count if they wanted to do what The Daily Eastern News suggested,” O’Hara said.

For the office of Student Body President, 73 voters wrote in a candidate. For student affairs, 26 write-in votes were tallied.