Is it an election if you can’t vote? In fascist dictatorships it is. And, apparently, at the Student Union Society.
The ongoing SUS by-elections have been more disorganized than usual. Policies are being ignored and information is scarce, with timelines and dates being altered without the changes being announced. This only matters half as much as it should, though, because according to SUS policy, students only get to vote if there are multiple candidates for a position. There is no option to vote against an uncontested candidate.
To elect means to choose. In an election — at least, in a democratic one — there is a choice between people, parties, or ideas that a voter gets to pick from. If there is no choice, there is no election.
According to SUS policy, the SUS election ballot contains a list of the positions up for election and the candidates available for each position. Only candidates are listed, so if there is only one candidate, there is only one bubble to click.
Not ideal, but you can just choose not to select an uncontested candidate if you don’t want them to win, right? Wrong. If no candidates are chosen, the ballot is considered “spoiled” and is not counted. (See Electoral Oversight Policy 4.1.3.)
This is, of course, if SUS follows their own policies. This has not been the case so far in the current by-elections.
There was only one Q&A session during the by-elections, despite the campaign period being extended by a week. There should have been two, one in Chilliwack and one in Abbotsford (Electoral Oversight Procedure), giving students on both campuses an opportunity to hear the candidates’ platforms. It doesn’t matter if students actually attend; what matters is that they are given the chance to.
The single Q&A session was held in Abbotsford on Oct. 21 at 6 p.m., and I have a chocolate bar for the first person who can find any advertisement of this event on SUS social media platforms.
Throughout the last two weeks the timeline of the elections has not been respected, and the changes have not been properly communicated to students. The voting period was pushed back a week from Oct. 15-18 to Oct. 22-24.
The announcement was made by discretely changing the dates on the around-campus posters and online advertisements. No explanation was given anywhere as to why the changes were made.
The election candidates were announced online a week after they were supposed to be, and their statements were taken off the website at the start of the voting period. As of Tuesday evening at midnight, the information section of the SUS election page still hadn’t been updated to include the correct voting period. These are all things that should have been organized before the original campaign period even started, not during, and certainly not after.
SUS likely has a good reason for these issues. They are currently without a vice-president internal, who would be the one overseeing many aspects of the by-elections, and a chief electoral officer stepped in last minute to take on the role when there were no applications.
But the confusion is not fair to candidates and it is not fair to the student voters. There is a reason bylaws and policies are in place for elections. There is a reason why two Q&A periods are required, with one in Abbotsford and one in Chilliwack, and there is a reason why key and mandatory campaign events are supposed to be planned before the campaign period.
SUS’s election policies are in place to enable students who are voting to receive adequate information on the candidates so they can be informed voters. They ensure all candidates have equal chances in the elections, and that they receive the same information and have the same time period and resources to campaign.
The policies aren’t just there for fun; they are in place to ensure the fair and free election of candidates who will represent the students’ best interest in a society that handles $4 million in student funding per year. However the way that they have skirted these policies shows that they feel entitled to operate independently of the student body. They are not. Hold them to account, show them you’re watching.
