The Student Union Society’s (SUS) by-elections have had a last minute change in schedule.
The campaign period will now run until Oct. 21 and voting will take place from Oct. 22 to 24. Campaign results will be announced in the ratification board meeting Oct. 25 at 8 a.m. The previous campaign period was from Oct. 1 to 14, with ratification on Oct. 21.
According to Jessica Levesque, chief electoral officer for the SUS elections, there were delays in confirming the eligibility of candidates during the nomination period, as one of the security officers was out of the office due to illness. The security checks are a regular part of the SUS election procedure to check that there were no security incidents regarding candidates on campus.
The candidate statements were not posted on the SUS website until Oct. 7. SUS bylaws require the candidate names and statements to be published on the first day of the campaign period, Oct. 1.
The campaigning dates also ran over the October long weekend, and the university was closed Monday, Oct. 14. Many students were not on campus over this weekend. Levesque said extending the campaign period would give the candidates more time to interact with the student body.
“We felt it would be of benefit to each candidate to re-arrange the dates of the campaign to give each student a fair opportunity to share their platform with the university, as well as giving students a better window of opportunity to vote,” Levesque said over email.
There was one Q&A session for the by-elections, hosted on Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. in the Student Union Building atrium in Abbotsford.
