The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is saying a motion they emailed to CUSA council calling for the removal of ranked voting was sent out by accident.
The March 20 email was sent out by CUSA vice-president (internal) Cat Kelly and, in addition to including the motion, sought to notify councillors of an upcoming meeting. The motion in question was put forward by Faculty of Public Affairs (FPA) councillor Julia Parsons and seconded by CUSA’s vice-president (finance) Gavin Resch.
Minutes after the motion had been sent out, Parsons emailed the council to say that she hadn’t meant to put forward the motion this early on.
“I was hoping to have a discussion after the elections, so that the electoral review committee can meet and review my points,” Parsons wrote in an email.
In an interview with the Charlatan, Parsons said she considered putting forward the motion, but decided against it after talking with her colleagues. She said it would be better to study the impact of the ranked voting system on CUSA’s elections before removing it altogether.
Cameron Wales, another FPA councillor, said he was “surprised” when he first saw the motion. He said he was “less surprised” when Parsons emailed council and said the motion had been included by accident.
“I take that at face value,” Wales said of her explanation. “It seems to me to be a misunderstanding, and I’m happy that it’s a misunderstanding, because I think that that kind of motion would have been premature.”
CUSA president Zameer Masjedee also said there was “a discussion” to be had about ranked voting, but the motion had been sent out erroneously.
“I think what Julia [Parsons] wanted to do was start that discussion.” He continued, “As of right now, there are no plans to remove ranked voting.”
When asked why Resch, one of CUSA’s vice-presidents, was included as the seconder on the motion, Masjedee said it had been done as a joke.
“To be 100 per cent honest with you, that was completely playful,” Masjedee said. “It was never supposed to remain in the motion when it was sent to council.”
But, Parsons said she asked Resch to second her motion and he agreed. She added that she’s not sure if he agrees with her stance on ranked voting.
Parsons, who’s an advocate for the first-past-the-post electoral system, said she dislikes ranked voting because it distorts what a vote means. For instance, when your first vote drops off, your second-choice candidate is weighted the same as your first choice. This process continues until a victor emerges.
“I don’t think [ranked voting is] the right choice because it doesn’t necessarily accurately reflect the way people feel, because their first, second, third, fourth [choice] mean different things to different people,” she said.
Matt Pelletier, a fourth-year public affairs and policy student, sat on CUSA council in the 2015-16 year and was a strong advocate the for ranked voting system, which eventually passed after “a lot of opposition.”
Pelletier said the motion to remove ranked voting wasn’t backed up with any”empirical facts.”
“It would maintain the status quo of inherently disproportionate elections because it would revert us to the archaic first-past-the-post system,” he said. “These are coming from individuals who are active members of one of the incumbent slates, and it sort of shows a very reactionary approach to an idea that hasn’t been fully tested.”
Parsons said many students don’t understand ranked voting, and she cited the lower voter turnout in this year’s election as evidence.
According to previous articles from the Charlatan, the 2018 CUSA byelection saw a voter turnout of 30.4 per cent while 37.2 per cent of students voted in the 2017 election.
“Council has worked for years to study and implement this system and any talk of repealing it outright is very premature at this point,” Wales said.
He agreed that the system should be reviewed and some “tweaks and adjustments” might need to be made in coming years, citing better voting education as an example.
Parsons said more evidence needs to be gathered and added that “it’ll be up to next year’s council to decide.”
Pelletier said he hopes the 2018-19 council studies the new system and makes a decision based on its conscience.
“There’s always going to be some obstacle or opponent to progress,” Pelletier said. “What we really require in these circumstances is to fight those sorts of misinformed stances with evidence, rather than ideology and show that this is something that [will] benefit students in the long run and making it about the benefit of the entire school, rather than the benefit of one or two parties.”
