With a little more than a week left before the Illinois Student Senate elections, incumbent candidate Frank Calabrese has challenged an election rule as unconstitutional.

The rule in question prohibits candidates from practicing informal slating, which is when candidates running for separate offices associate campaigns with each other. For example, if a student senator candidate sends out an e-mail advertisement of their campaign including support for another running candidate.

“Just because it says it in a student government paper doesn’t mean that it is legal,” said Frank Calabrese, who is running for his third term as student senator. “This is a clear violation of political freedom of speech.”

The Illinois Student Senate has already passed an updated constitution in which informal slating is allowed, Calabrese said, but this will not be put on the ballot until the fall referendum. He said he is currently communicating with officials in the Chancellor’s Office, which has power to regulate the election, about getting the rule changed before the Feb. 26 election.

“I’ve never seen (the prohibition of informal slating) as an issue worth challenging,” said Student Body President Justin Randall. “It has never been a big problem.”

Still, the question of whether or not constitutional rights apply to this situation is under debate.

“Legal decisions on student elections have taken into account the educational nature of these processes,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Renee Romano wrote in an e-mail. “They aren’t always considered the same as public elections.”

Frank Calabrese said, based off of research in the law library and discussions with professors, that this election will choose actual public officials, and the elections must follow state and federal election laws.

Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden wrote in a concurring letter to Calabrese that because the candidates are seeking to be elected to a board that abides by state law, some of the “privileges to subvert free speech” that are granted to private organizations may not apply.

Shelden also wrote that he believes the rule is “a slap at the constitutional protections granted by both state and federal constitutions.”

The issue of whether or not slating can be banned in a student election is questionable, Romano said. Being debated now is whether or not constitutional rights are protected in a University election.

“The question of slating is a gray area and to change the process designed and implemented by the students requires drastic measures on the part of the administration at this point,” Romano wrote. “I have always felt strongly about the ability of students to govern themselves.”