Undergraduate Council elections have kicked off amid some confusion about rules for soliciting petition signatures via Facebook, with two tickets so far receiving penalties for posting photographs in violation of election rules.

As of Thursday night, four potential tickets have been soliciting signatures to run for president and vice president, respectively—Ava Nasrollahzadeh ’16  and Dhruv P. Goyal ’16, Luke R. Heine ’17 and Stephen A. Turban ’17, Meghamsh Kanuparthy ’16 and  Ema H. Horvath ’16, and Happy Yang ’16 and Faith A. Jackson ’16. All candidates are current representatives on the Council, excluding Horvath and Jackson. Nasrollahzadeh, Goyal, Kanuparthy, and Yang are all on the UC’s executive board.

The pairs must each garner 150 undergraduate petition signatures for their names to be automatically placed on the ballot. So far, the Nasrollahzadeh and Goyal ticket has already surpassed that amount, while Yang and Jackson, as well as Kanuparthy and Horvath, are “incredibly close” to reaching the requisite signatures, according to UC Election Commission chair Matthew C. Estes ’18. Heine and Turban have “yet aways” to reach the quota, but have, like all candidates, until Monday at midnight to do so, Estes said.

The Election Commission, independent of the Undergraduate Council, has so far levelled sanctions against two tickets, Nasrollahzadeh-Goyal and Yang-Jackson, for rules infractions.

Just last week, the Council passed this year’s set of election rules. The rules are, by and large, the same as those of last year’s elections, but starting this year, potential candidates are allowed to solicit petition signatures on Facebook.

The scope of this approval, however, appears to be a point of confusion among candidates.

On Tuesday, the Election Commission asked Goyal and Nasrollahzadeh to remove one post from Facebook that featured a photograph of him and Nasrollahzadeh indicating that they were entering the race, according to Estes. The post bordered on campaigning, which is forbidden during the petitioning period, Estes said.

Goyal, for his part, said that the sanction came as a result of a “misunderstanding” concerning the new rule, and that he quickly complied with the Commission’s request.

“We had no intention to break any rules whatsoever,” Goyal said.

Yang and Jackson were also forced to remove a Facebook post of their own, which featured them clad in capes and superhero-like attire, climbing one of Harvard’s gates.

“Campaigning, in any form, like with photos like that, is explicitly forbidden before campaign period,” Estes said about both tickets’ posts. Estes added that the Commission “practically immediate[ly]” asked the candidates to take down the posts.

Yang and Jackson are currently serving a three-day ban on soliciting petition signatures because, Estes said, he made clear in a correspondence to them beforehand that they were not allowed to publish a post of that sort on Facebook. Estes added that he does not believe their campaign will suffer greatly from the sanction because they are just about a couple dozen signatures shy of the 150 mark.  

Yang, who said she was unavailable to speak on the phone, wrote in an emailed statement that the Commission had clarified some confusion about the rule and whether posts with pictures were permitted. She added that her campaign has not been negatively affected.

Goyal said that he and Nasrollahzadeh had reported the Yang and Jackson post to the Election Commission after seeing it shared on Facebook, but that the the Commission had already been aware of the post in question. Estes confirmed this account in an email Thursday night.

Yang wrote she was not aware that another ticket had reported her campaign, but was “glad to hear that all the candidates are keeping everything in check, making sure this is a fair election.”

Estes said he expects all four tickets to garner the requisite signatures by the deadline Monday.

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.