The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) made a decision to move this year’s election, and all future elections, online at their Jan. 30 council meeting.
Several members contested the decision, but as of this moment, the online elections held through Carleton Central are going ahead unimpeded. The problem with this is timing.
On the same day council passed this motion to immediately move to online elections, the nomination period for candidates had already started, begging the question: What’s the rush?
The move to online is substantial, and it’s a good idea given the controversy that has surrounded paper balloting. Scrutineering mix-ups and recounts have gone hand-in-hand with almost every student association election. But it’s too soon.
CUSA has committed itself to overhauling the entire system, teaching the brand new chief electoral officer all the new rules that will go along with it, re-training the returning electoral officers and dealing with all the bugs and possible issues of hacking in a time span of less than three weeks.
To steal a Twitter hashtag from councillor Michael De Luca, it’s understandable that CUSA has a #letsgetworking motto due to the almost five-month long court case, but that’s no reason to rush through such extensive changes.
Let’s stick with paper balloting this year and have an opportunity to test out this new online system extensively to make sure we’re actually giving students a better, unbiased, more accountable election, instead of just another CUSA headache.
