Illinois Student Senate internal elections, scheduled for Thursday night, were temporary imperiled after a controversial resolution passed during Wednesday night’s regular senate meeting.

“The student elections will continue as planned,” wrote Justin Randall, current student body president, in a text message.

The Illinois Student Senate passed a resolution Wednesday preventing members from the Student Election Commission from reappointing themselves or their own successors. The supporters of the resolution intend to instead have an outside student body appoint new members for the election commission next year.

Due to the resolution, the election commission will be dissolved April 4, Student Election Commission co-chair Kevin Shields said.

Individuals from administration, student senators and the co-chairs had been exchanging E-mails Thursday, he said. Shields and the other co-chairs initially notified the other two parties that the election commission will be suspending its actions Thursday and not running the student senate’s internal elections.

It was unclear whether the Thursday night’s elections would take place without the election commission’s oversight.

Dan Bolin, Student Election Commission member, said he was disappointed in the student senate’s decision since they did not consult with the commission or notify them before they made the decision.

“I think the way they went about it was cowardly,” he said.

Bolin said he expects the Student Election Commission co-chairs to challenge the student senate’s actions.

Current student body president Justin Randall said one reason that the student body decided to pass the resolution was to address the problem of the election commission being disproportionately composed of graduate law students.

“After several years, this has caused the body to stagnate,” Randall said, adding that the goal of the resolution was to try and bring new life to the election commission, which determines and enforces regulations and for University student elections.

Shields said that getting graduate students outside the College of Law was his number one goal this year but it proved difficult. Student Election Commission members are largely law students because graduates from other colleges simply are not interested and cannot invest the time, he said.

However, Shields said he personally believes there are two problems with this resolution: the student senate will be unable to find enough graduate students to fill the Student Election Commission and will have to appoint former Illinois Student Senate representatives who are graduates and have personal connections with student senate members, undermining the commission’s role as an independent body.

“You’d just be paying lip service when you say (the Student Election Commission) is an independent public body,” said Shields.