It took a motion, an amendment and more than five hours of discussion, but this year’s Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections will be held online for the first time in the association’s history.
When the motion for electoral reform was originally tabled by arts and social sciences councillor Brandon Wallingford during a Jan. 26 council meeting, it was over five pages long and sought extensive reforms in addition to the move to online elections.
Part of the more controversial reforms included banning current CUSA employees and executives from running in the election, something vice-president (student life) Dave Tapiero argued against extensively.
“I don’t really care about myself personally, I’m on my way to graduating, but for all those students out there that do want to run, [they] now have to make a choice,” Tapiero said.
During a follow-up meeting Jan. 30, public affairs and policy management councillor Chris Thompson tabled a more streamlined amendment which removed the more controversial aspects of electoral reform and focused instead on the logistics of an online election.
One of the objections against Wallingford’s motion, which critics on council felt wasn’t addressed by Thompson’s amendment, was the potential of someone hacking the election to submit a large number of votes in favour of a particular candidate.
But vote-rigging has occurred with the paper-ballot system, Thompson countered, adding that by using Carleton Central to conduct the online elections, the risk will be minimal.
“There’s always a potential for hacking, just as there’s always potential that a ballot box can be stuffed,” he said. “Carleton Central is a very secure online presence because there’s so much personal information there.”
“The thing about hacking is there’s always some kind of trail, something that can be followed. With ballot box stuffing, there might not necessarily be a trail. I honestly believe that to create a more fair election, this is the way to go,” Thompson said.
Vice-president (internal) Ariel Norman did not speak definitively as to whether she is opposed to the concept of online elections, but said that to implement CUSA’s first online elections in under three weeks would mean more errors.
“It’s going to be a rushed process at best, considering the elections are already underway,” she said. “I think that if we do go the route of an online elections, we should definitely be taking more time, this should be a well-thought out, well-planned and well-implemented process.”
Bruce Kyereh-Addo, who acted as proxy for special students councillor Ashley Scorpio and was famously disqualified when he ran for CUSA president in 2009, praised the move to online elections.
“It’s not 2002, it’s 2012,” Kyereh-Addo said. “I think this is really good for the association.”
Although the motion was passed unanimously, Norman moved immediately for a reconsideration of the minutes in an attempt to delay voting of the motion to a later day.
Following the meeting, Norman said the decision was in order to allow a greater number of the councillors and executives to be in attendance. Many of the missing council members were on the defendants’ side of the almost five-month legal battle that saw council inactive.
“I voted in favour of the motion even though I didn’t agree with it because I wanted to be able to re-consider the motion, because the majority of the defendants couldn’t be here today, due to the short nature of this meeting that was called,” Norman said.
In a controversial decision that resulted in a shouting match between councillors, CUSA chair Stephanie Feldman ruled against Norman.
Before a number of the defendants could move a non-confidence vote against Feldman, Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) president Kaisha Thompson moved to adjourn the meeting.
Although the elections will now go ahead online, Norman said the dispute is now a legal matter, since she said the move to online elections goes against the settlement agreement.
Section 13 of the settlement states: “ . . . nothing in these [minutes] shall be interpreted to interfere with or delay the conduct of the 2012 CUSA [elections], and the [parties] agree to do or consent to such acts as may be necessary to ensure the unimpeded conduct of such [elections] as set out in the [governance documents].”
“We shouldn’t be touching the election at all and I’ve made this apparent at several council meetings now, but here we are,” Norman said. “It falls back into the realm of legal counsel.”
