James Brunet, a fourth-year computer science student at Carleton University, has started a campaign to encourage undergraduates to vote ‘no confidence’ in the 2018 Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections. He said the lack of candidates running in the elections is undemocratic.
Currently, four of the six executive positions are running uncontested, including president, vice-president (internal), vice-president (student services), and vice-president (finance). Vice-president (student life), and vice-president (student issues) each have two candidates running—either an independent or a candidate from the One Carleton slate.
Brunet is also the former campaign manager for the independent candidate running for the position of vice-president (student issues).
He said he blames CUSA for failing to advertise the election far enough in advance. He said there was only two days notice of the writ of election before the nomination period. This year, the nomination period ran from Jan. 25-26.
A post to the campaign’s Facebook page said, “The only announcements of the election was a post on CUSAs [sic] Facebook page linking to their website, a post which received a single like, and a tweet that gathered a single heart and no retweets. Even the charlatan’s [sic] article about the election was posted AFTER nominations had closed.”
The Charlatan article about the shortened nomination period appeared in print on Jan. 25, but was posted online on Jan. 30.
At an emergency CUSA meeting on Feb. 5, CUSA chair Shawn Humphrey said if a position received a majority vote of ‘no confidence,’ it would result in a vacant position, which can be filled in a byelection.
However, Humphrey said the period to hold a byelection is quite short, as it can’t overlap with the examination period. He also said it would cost nearly as much as a regular election to hold a byelection.
If the position can’t be filled before the end of the winter semester, Humphrey said the byelection would have to wait until September.
Brunet said he blamed the shortened nomination period for the lack of candidates running in this year’s election as well. At CUSA’s Jan. 23 meeting, council voted to shorten the nomination period from three days to two.
“The incumbent slate [One Carleton] has members of it who are on council, who know when the writ is dropped because they’re there, and they voted to do it,” Brunet said. “CUSA did a terrible job about notifying people about an election, and if any body with 25,000 members tried to [do] that, it would be a scandal and it should be, especially if nobody’s running against the incumbent slate.”
CUSA president Zameer Masjedee said that he understands why students are unhappy with the lack of candidates, but that if the council—who voted on the nomination period and the drop of the writ—thought the process was democratic before election started, it’s unfair of them to change their opinion due to the outcome.
“I agree that only having one person run for a position doesn’t allow you to exercise your democratic right . . . but at the same time, you can’t call into question the process, when the process remained the same as it has for the last five years, and simply blame the candidates for the fact that there wasn’t anyone running against them,” he said. “I think that’s unfair.”
At the emergency meeting on Feb. 5, Nada Ibrahim, the chief electoral officer, said the Elections Office did their due diligence in advertising the election.
She said the office followed CUSA’s bylaws and advertised the election with posters around campus, Facebook posts, and on CUSA’s website. Ibrahim also said the Elections Office held office hours to inform students and answer any of their questions.
“We did our job,” she said. “If you didn’t see it, you didn’t take the effort to look for it.”
Also at the Feb. 5 meeting, engineering and design councillor Emma Maddock presented a motion to delay the election and extend the nomination period.
In an interview with the Charlatan, Brunet said his campaign would dissolve if the motion was passed because it would allow for more people to run in the election, which he said is the goal of his campaign.
The motion failed with a vote of six for, 11 against, and six abstentions, as all six current CUSA executives abstained from voting on the motion.
Council also passed a motion to define the term ‘no confidence’ for the 2018 elections, as no definition existed under CUSA’s bylaws and there was no defined outcome if this option were to receive the most votes. According to the motion, any unofficial no confidence campaigns must “conduct themselves fairly in the spirit of CUSA’s electoral policy” and must abide by the same rules governing other candidates.
The motion read: “If the majority of the votes received for an executive position are “No Confidence,” then that position will be considered vacant and will require a by-election to fill.”
The same provision was made for councillor positions. The motion also set out that the options of voting ‘no confidence’ and ‘abstain’ must be included on all the ballots.
Masjedee said that election advertising should be better going forward, but it’s “shortsighted” to blame it for the lack of candidates. He said students typically start preparing for CUSA elections months in advance, and an extra nomination day wouldn’t have made a difference.
“You can’t tell me that if there had been an extra day, a third day added on [to the nomination period], those candidates would have miraculously showed up in an organized fashion with their slates and their posters and their ideas and began talking to students—that’s a little bit ridiculous, right?” he said.
But, Brunet said he’s “100 per cent” certain more people will run if there’s a re-election or if the nomination period were lengthened.
“I’m sure people will run,” he said. “If nobody runs against the president, I will.”
