A special election held on Feb. 12 for one Finance Board member and one associate justice, which was held as both seats remained unfilled after a Jan. 29 election, left only the position of F-Board member filled.

According to polling data provided by Student Union Secretary Sneha Walia '15 to the Justice, Alex Mitchell '17 won the F-Board member seat with 168 votes, or 25 percent of the votes. Judy Nam '16, Spencer Isen '15 and Abstain all received 22 percent of the votes. Nam received 150 votes, abstain received 149 and Isen received 148.

As an F-board member, Mitchell wrote in an email to the Justice that he will try to give more funding to newer clubs, especially those founded by underclassmen.

"Although most of the money has already been allocated for the semester, newly-founded clubs that missed the first funding marathon can still apply for money," he wrote. "I feel Brandeis is better off if we have a constant influx of new clubs presenting different perspectives and ideas, so giving these new groups funding seems like a good idea."

The abstain option received 128 votes, or 18 percent of the votes, for associate justice. 

The Student Union decided that another special election will not be held, according to Walia. The associate justice position will remain unfilled until the spring elections for the 2014 to 2015 academic year.

"The election itself would not be for another 2 weeks [from the first special election] at the earliest and, if a candidate won, they would assume their position at the start of March and would begin being trained and working with the group then," Walia wrote in an email to the Justice. "Our Spring elections for the next school year are held in April, so it just would not be useful to put on election to have someone fill the spot for just over a month."

According to Chief Justice Claire Sinai '15 in an email to the Justice, the reduced number of associate justices will "absolutely not impact the Judiciary's ability to rule."

Sinai wrote that the only difference is that quorum in mediations and trials in which all members are present is now three, rather than four, justices. However, she wrote that if a justice has a conflict of interest and needs to be excused from the bench, quorum will be two, rather than three, justice.

This year, the Judiciary has only received one case, according to Sinai. The trial is scheduled for Thursday and involves the controversy between the Brandeis Libertarians and the Brandeis Libertarian Conservative Union and their respective names and purposes.
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