Of the three slates in the Government of Student Body presidential race, only one escaped with no campaign fines.

The slate of Russell Graves and Dave Stout received no fines, while Sophia Magill and Will Rock drew $250 over the last two months, and Drew Miller and Jenn Riggs garnered $150 since February 9. The fines were indicative of the nature of the three campaigns, officials said.

“It’s actually pretty hard to have a large campaign group and not break one of the rules, because they’re really pretty stringent and easy to break,” said Clint Fichter, GSB election commissioner. “Russ and Dave ran a very grassroots campaign, without as many people.”

Magill and Rock received the bulk of their fines for posting a campaign flier on a sociology department staff bulletin board without permission, which Fichter said constituted a charge of campaigning without compliance to university requirements. He fined the slate $150 for the infraction.

The slate’s second offense was using an e-mail to begin campaigning before the Feb. 9 campaign kickoff point, which tacked on another $100 fine.

The first fine, Fichter said, resulted from a misunderstanding between the candidates and their support pool. A member of the duo’s campaign team had accidentally placed a flier in the wrong spot.

Rock said he and Magill planned to appeal the second infraction, which occurred when an e-mail sent out by the two accidentally advertised a “campaign meeting” instead of a “campaign planning meeting.” A planning meeting would have been acceptable under GSB election codes, he said.

GSB executive slates are allowed half-reimbursement for up to $1,000 in campaign funds, with any infractions resulting in the loss of the slate’s $150 “good faith” deposit before beginning to detract from their reimbursement eligibility.

Two of the Miller/Riggs fines were based on using GSB resources for campaign purposes. The two drew a $50 fine for printing off a letter to the Iowa State Daily with a GSB printer. Miller said the charge would be disputed.

“I don’t know what was going on there,” he said. “The letter had already been sent before it was printed off. I don’t see how it helped our campaign in any way.”

The second, a $75 fine, involved a combination infraction of using GSB resources and facilities for campaign purposes. The Miller/Riggs campaign had used a nearby conference room as a campaign headquarters.

Miller said he definitely intended to contest the infraction, claiming the room in question was not a GSB room, but rather a general-purpose conference room.

Another infraction, which took place earlier this year, involved Riggs using an e-mail listserver to campaign. Miller dismissed the charge as a simple mistake.

“Jenn forgot to delete her signature, Vote for Miller/Riggs, on a letter to a group that she’s vice president of,” he said. “It’s a simple mistake to make, but at the same time I can understand where the election commission is coming from.”

The slate of Russell Graves and Dave Stout survived the campaign without committing a single infraction, which Graves attributes to a number of factors, including the controllability of the slates campaign actions.

Part of it, he said, was the lack of media promotion the slate had, preferring instead to limit their campaign activities to handing out buttons and placing signboards around campus.

“It’s hard to screw up when you only have two or three things you’re keeping track of,” Graves said. “It’s not hard to avoid fines. You just have to think first and act second.”