This year’s Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election resulted in a landslide victory for the Students First slate, which won every executive position.
The voting deadline was pushed to 11 p.m. from 6 p.m. after CUSA retracted a rule preventing students who opted out from voting. The retraction was made at 3 p.m. on the last voting day after complaints from students, including a change.org petition which garnered 360 signatures.
Notably, voter turnout increased this year from 7,783 votes in last year’s election to 8,810 votes.
While this is a positive thing, voter turnout should have increased because students were informed and wanted to be engaged, not because they were afraid of losing their ballots.
CUSA narrowly dodged a major democratic failure by extending the deadline and retroactively allowing opted-out students to vote.
Just because a student does not support one CUSA administration, and chooses to withdraw their financial support for them one year does not mean they shouldn’t be allowed to help choose the next council.
Although much of the student body has become either jaded or apathetic to CUSA, the students the Carleton community chooses to run the association will make decisions which affect their years at Carleton—not to mention deciding how to spend opted-in students’ money.
The student body must not give up on paying attention to CUSA. It is the only way structural issues, such as one-slate elections and low voter turnout, can change.
File photo.
