The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) 2018 election results were released on March 22, with the only slate in the running, Elevate, being elected to all five executive positions.
Jay Ramasubramanyam (president), Ashley Courchene (vice-president finance), Miranda Leibel (vice-president operations), Helyeh Doutaghi (vice-president external), and Trycia Bazinet (vice-president academic) will make up the GSA’s 2018-19 executive team.
When casting their ballots for the executives, graduate students also passed a referendum on a $1.31 levy, indexed to the Consumer Price Index, to support the Carleton University Student Emergency Response Team (CUSERT).
According to Chief Electoral Officer Megan Elliot, of the more than 3,900 graduate students represented by the GSA, 242 students cast their votes in the election.
Elliot said in an email that voter turnout could be increased if the GSA was able to contact graduate students via email.
“It is integral for the GSA to gain access to its list of members so that communication to grad students is efficient and thorough,” Elliot said.
Current GSA president Eric Hitsman said that while an uncontested slate running two years in a row is not a good sign, it’s positive that there’s more diversity in the slate this year.
“We’ve been trying to get more representation in the GSA,” Hitsman said.
Hitsman said that he wants to involve more students, but added that access to a list of graduate students would help.
“One of the big barriers with graduate students is that a lot of them are not on campus at all, so it’s really difficult to get information out to them. If the university would give us a membership list, we would have an easier time reaching these people,” he stated.
Voting in GSA elections requires students to come to campus and vote via paper ballots. Hitsman said that while the idea of electronic voting has been debated in the past, he’s not sure it’s a good decision to make until electronic voting becomes a “safer process.”
“Based on a lot of research, a lot of corruption can happen on an online platform, especially considering the fact that the university often wants to take a role in administrating an online election,” he said. “Part of the reason we want to keep the paper ballots is so that the university isn’t tainting those results.”
Both Elliot and Hitsman said that this year’s elections might have been affected by the ongoing Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2424 strike. Hitsman said some graduate students might not be coming to campus due to the picket lines.
“I’m not sure how much the election would encourage students to cross the picket line only to vote,” Hitsman said. “There’s a good chance many graduate students decided not to vote, because they decided to work from home.”
Elliot said there were no problems during the election process.
“My duty is administering the elections, and it went very smooth without violations. The grad students voting and running were professional and respectful,” she said.
The results for the GSA elections will remain unofficial until they are ratified by the GSA council on April 9.
Photo by Meagan Casalino
