It has been nearly a month since the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections, but appeals to overturn electoral offences and to challenge the electoral code continue.
Carleton’s constitutional board will hold appeals for Carlos Chacón, Shewit Kalaty, Bruce Kyereh-Addo and Dean Tester on March 24, after all four candidates were unsuccessful to appeal to the electoral board.
Brittany Smyth, CUSA president and chair of the constitutional board, has decided to step down from her position as chair for the duration of the appeals, but is not resigning. Her reasoning for not sitting on the board is “personal,” she said.
“It’s just not something I’m comfortable sitting on. It’s a very heated issue, so it’s probably better if I’m not on it,” she said.
CUSA vice-president (finance) Kweku Winful will sit in her place as chair for the duration of the appeals.
Both Chacón and Kalaty, candidates of the Because It Matters slate, are appealling the decision made by chief electoral officer (CEO) Heather Murley to keep Nick Bergamini and Jessica Vasquez elected, despite having three electoral offences each. The electoral code states that three electoral offences are needed to prompt “immediate disqualification of the candidate.”
Murley said that during the elections, “I did everything I could not to disqualify people. I have the discretion to implement the code and I didn’t feel comfortable disqualifying them,” she said.
Chacón said he believes that Bergamini and Vasquez, who carried the same positions on the Demand Better slate to Chacón and Kalaty, respectively, had an unfair advantage.
“I feel that [Vasquez] and [Bergamini] both benefited from the fact that [Erik Halliwell, Kalaty and I] were slandered,” Chacón said.
This comment refers to a Facebook “attack ad” that was released against Halliwell, Chacón and Kalaty. When clicked, the ad allegedly lead to a Shinerama Facebook group created by Bergamini.
“There is no way you can directly link that to [Bergamini]. But the argument is that they benefit [from the ads],” Chacón said.
Bergamini argues that there is no way of proving responsibility on Facebook.
“The three violations I was given are all things that I didn’t do, but what other people did on Facebook. People do things, and apparently I get violated for it,” he said.
Kyereh-Addo is continuing his appeal to the constitutional board, with the intent of overturning the electoral board’s decision to maintain the electoral offences charged against him.
Kyereh-Addo was disqualified from the elections for having six electoral offences, some of which include alleged damage of property, the use of DC++ during polling and the use of Facebook ads.
Tester is also appealing to the constitutional board in response to the electoral board ruling that audio and video campaign material be banned. Tester argues that the banning of multimedia is restrictive.
“All it really does is limit the ability of candidates to get their message out and students to understand the issues and to know what’s going on,” he said.
Not only does the ban act as a form of censorship, but it is also a blatant violation of human rights, according to Tester.
Tester said that according to the United Nations electoral handbook, multimedia is a must in the event that there are students who need to rely on alternate mediums of communication, whether for reasons of language barrier or disability, to make an informed decision during elections.
The constitutional board meeting, open to the public, will be held at 2 p.m. in the Graduate Students’ Association boardroom on March 24.