Another question hinges on the issue of expenditures.

“The rules are quite explicit in banning expenditures prior to December 1 and domain registration has a cost associated with it,” Monteiro said.

Silvestri said he spent $13.70 registering the site.

Even if the commission cannot find hard evidence that he was involved with the site’s creation, Chapa may not get off scotch free.

“Fortunately, we’re not bound by the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ rule,” Monteiro said. “I couldn’t necessarily say that it would be okay, but it’s not explicitly under the rules and we would have to figure out the fairest thing to do.”

Chapa said that he was not aware of his friends’ intention to create the site and that he is still undecided about whether or not he will run.

“I didn’t know about the website, but was very honored that my friends decided to do it,” Chapa said, adding that the election commission has already contacted him about the site and its possible violation of election rules.

Flattered as he may be, Chapa is already trying to distance himself from the site.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to run so I don’t want to get into any trouble. I want stay as far away from the website as possible,” he said.

Monteiro said that he does not anticipate that Chapa would be disqualified from the election for his non-campaigning campaigning.

“We would have to receive evidence that we had been lied to during some point in the investigation and I don’t anticipate this occurring,” Monteiro said.

But it is likely that $44 dollars would be deducted from Chapa’s spending limit if he decided to run, according to Monteiro.

Monteiro said the website controversy was without precedent.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this. In the past three years nothing like this has happened,” he said.

—Staff writer Ebonie D. Hazle can be reached at hazle@fas.harvard.edu.