With the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election just days away, the elections office has yet to determine whether ranked voting will be implemented for the election process this season.
At a council meeting on Jan. 23, CUSA voted unanimously to drop the writ of election, including the implementation of ranked voting for all the executive positions. Meanwhile, councillor positions will still have first-past-the-post ballots—where the candidate with the most number of votes is elected.
In contrast, a ranked voting ballot allows voters to list candidates in order of preference. Then in each round of analysis, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and those who voted for that candidate have their vote redistributed to the candidate ranked next on their ballot. This process continues until one candidate receives the majority of votes and is elected.
According to CUSA president Zameer Masjedee and chief electoral officer Nada Ibrahim, the ranked voting system is effective when there’s three or more candidates running for a position. However, this election season there’s a maximum of two candidates running for executive positions, with some positions going unchallenged.
“I guess the real question now is, ‘Will there even be ranked voting?’” Masjedee asked. “I think that’s something the CEO has to decide.”
Because ranked voting is already implemented in the electoral code, Ibrahim said the elections office had to call an emergency council meeting to determine what the election process would be this year.
The emergency council meeting is to be held on Feb. 5 at 6 p.m., meaning the finalized election process will be relayed to students either late that night or the next morning.
Ibrahim said she was hoping to hold the meeting at an earlier date, but the elections office had to wait for the nomination period to pass to see how many candidates would be running. In addition, a 48-hour notice period must be given for emergency council meetings.
Because of the emergency council meeting, the executive debates will now be held on Feb. 6 together with the councillor debates, as opposed to having them on separate dates.
“We’re trying our best to inform the students and to have a ranked voting election this season but because it’s the first time there’s like huge grey areas that should have been taken care of from the beginning, before election season had even begun,” Ibrahim said.
She also said she’s spoken to students on campus, and she doesn’t believe they’re aware of what ranked voting is.
“They had no idea,” she said. “That’s another hiccup that we’re finding with ranked voting.”
According to Ibrahim, the elections office held an information session about ranked voting, but not many people showed up. Students looking for resources can visit the elections office anytime during their office hours or see the sample ballot on CUSA’s website.
Both Ibrahim and Masjedee said they think ranked voting shouldn’t be used in the election due to the lack of candidates.
“As of this election season, I don’t think ranked voting will be the best option, but we obviously have to leave it up to council,” Ibrahim said. “Our elections office is trying our hardest just to make the process go smoothly, to get the ballot out.”
Students can vote in the CUSA elections on Feb. 7 and 8. θ
