After five months of delay, the SUS by-election nomination period may begin as early as next week. At the upcoming October 26 SUS board meeting, the by-election nomination period start date will be brought up as a discussion item.
Jaleen Mackay, SUS vice president internal, said that the nomination period will likely begin Friday, November 3, though according to their policies it could technically be called as soon as today.
The SUS board may chose to call a by-election at any time, in accordance with their policies and bylaws, if there are any vacant positions. SUS has 13 positions, and almost all of them are currently vacant.
SUS election policies only require by-elections be called when there are less than three elected members on the board. Any other time, by-elections may be called at the will of the board if there are any vacant elected positions.
“Technically we didn’t need to call a by-election, but I thought it was a good idea. Currently our board consists of eight voting members, in the summer in consisted of six,” said MacKay. “The issue with that is half the board are paid executives. Another thing is when people don’t show up, we can very easily lose quorum.”
SUS election policies stipulate that the nomination period for SUS elections takes place over two weeks, with the start date determined by the board of directors. A two day review period follows immediately after. The campaign period then runs for two weeks with voting taking place over three or four business days after the campaign period.
On this timeline, by-elections would be completed by mid December.
Leading up to now
In June, MacKay intended to move forward with the by-election plans, but the board meeting was cancelled due to a lack of quorum. At the July board meeting, only four board members attended. MacKay said she didn’t want to call for a by-election when only one non-executive member was in attendance.
In August, MacKay said, the board couldn’t wait any longer, so despite another four member board meeting turnout, they called for by-elections.
The vote was put in the in-camera session, and as a result wasn’t made public until September. A job posting was made for a chief electoral officer (CEO) shortly after, and this week a CEO was officially hired.
“I tried to start this in May, and we were only just able to get the CEO position filled now. It might have happened one or two months earlier if we had been able to vote in June, but there was no board meeting in June. That’s precisely why we need people on the board, because we’re losing quorum whenever we miss people.”
