The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council passed several motions to amend the electoral process at their meeting on Feb. 27.
The first item on the agenda was to drop the writ for the byelection in order to fill three executive positions, including president, vice-president (internal), and vice-president (student services).
The byelection will also seek to fill the following six vacant councillor positions: four faculty of arts and social sciences positions; one public affairs position; and one special student position.
“Welcome to election 2.0,” said Shawn Humphrey, CUSA council chair, as the writ was approved and council moved on to other motions on the agenda.
David Oladejo, student-at-large and the One Carleton presidential candidate in the 2018 election, raised a motion to increase the time between the drop of the writ and the nomination period.
“In the past CUSA elections, there has been an assumption that whoever wants to run is aware of the 48-hour difference,” he said. “For the byelection, we’d like to make sure we give [potential candidates] enough time to get their affairs in order, and be more knowledgeable about the nomination period.”
During the meeting, it was clarified that the increase in time is new to the electoral process. In past elections, the nomination period began the day after the writ was dropped. However, the byelection will mark the first election to mandate a week-long period in between the two events.The motion passed with a majority vote and two abstentions.
The next motion sought to notify students of the CUSA elections via students’ Carleton email accounts, also moved by Oladejo.
Vice-president (finance) Gavin Resch moved to amend this motion to include an advertising banner in the Carleton student portal, cuLearn, to further promote the elections.
“We’ve talked to the university [officials], and they suggested that readership on student emails is quite low,” Resch said. “This is why we agreed that the online portal has a higher usage and will allow for more students to be in the know of the elections.”
Additionally, it was clarified by Alexis Oundo, vice-president (student services), that a graphic banner will also be shown on the Carleton website to advertise the byelection.
With no further debate, the amended motion passed unanimously.
Public affairs councillor Cameron Wales raised the next motion to establish an electoral review committee. He said that CUSA’s elections are not currently reviewed by council in an official capacity.
“The council should always strive to improve the democratic process,” he said. “This motion allows the council to look at the results of each election in earnest and take a closer look at the trends in the turnout, so that we can keep resolving specific issues for each election.”
After the motion passed unanimously, Wales also moved to reform CUSA’s electoral code to ensure adequate notice for future elections. He argued that the nomination period of two days has been shown to be inadequate.
The motions to reform the electoral process came after three executive positions in the elections went to the ‘no confidence’ option. Online, students argued that the elections weren’t advertised enough, and that the nomination period was too short, which resulted in a lack of candidates.
The motion was debated by several council members, who argued that “adequate notice” must also include “more transparency on social media and the CUSA website” for each period of the elections process: the presentation of the writ, the nomination period, the campaign period and voting period.
The debate led to several motions for amendment, all of which passed unanimously.
These amending motions included a reformation of the electoral code to include “fixed election days,” an increase in the nomination period from two days to three, and that the chief electoral officer and deputy electoral officers be hired “no later than November 30 of each year.”
Wales’ original motion passed with four abstentions.
The nomination period for the 2018 byelection will run from March 7-9, followed by a blackout period. Campaigning will run from March 14-20, and voting will occur on March 21 and 22.
Photo by Rachel Emmanuel
