Fresh RRRA, one of the slates running in this year’s Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) election, was officially disqualified on Feb. 14.
The disqualification came after Fresh RRRA received a third official violation on Feb. 14 for a volunteer campaigning without a volunteer badge.
The slate’s second violation came on Feb. 13, after a voice recording was given to the elections office that showed one of the candidates for Fresh RRRA offering a member of another slate a job if their slate dropped out of the election and supported Fresh RRRA.
According to Jessica Beaudoin, the chief electoral officer, bribery could have been an immediate disqualification for the slate, but the decision was made to deem it a second strike.
Under RRRA’s electoral code, teams which receive three or more violations can be disqualified.
Fresh RRRA received a first violation on Feb. 11 for campaigning outside of a designated campaigning area, for a total of three violations.
The team was still included on the ballot because it was too late to remove them, Beaudoin said.
“If they do get the vote, it will go to the second team that has the second-highest [number of votes],” Beaudoin said.
Jessica May, Fresh RRRA’s campaign manager, said the recording should not be counted as evidence.
“The recording was illegally recorded as my candidate was not made aware that he was being recorded,” she said. “Additionally, the other team approached my candidate and my candidate was then coerced and entrapped, as seen by the recording. They continuously prompted him to speak about certain things while recording him.”
Recording of a conversation is legal in Canada as long as one party in the conversation is aware of it, but it is not clear who recorded the conversation or how it was obtained.
May said she feels the rulings of this year’s constitutional board have been contradictory when compared to ones made by last year’s board.
“We received a violation in regards to a volunteer campaigning in a non-campaign zone as marked off by green tape. However, the evidence shown was merely a photograph,” May said.
She added that during last year’s election, the team led by current RRRA president Hyder Naqvi, who is running for re-election, did not receive a violation despite being accused of the same actions.
“The constitutional board ruled that because it was only photographic evidence instead of voice recording or a video, that it made absolutely no sense and they were unable to concretely apply the fact that the volunteer was campaigning,” May said.
According to May, the electoral code has a lot of grey areas, making it “unfair.”
“You can look at it from one perspective and have it be okay, and look at it from another person’s perspective on the exact same ruling, and have them totally contradict one another,” she said.
After appealing all three violations to the constitutional board and having them upheld, May said she will be bringing the violations for bribery and campaigning outside a designated area to the residence council.
May added she believes Beaudoin is biased, due to a cover photo on her Facebook featuring Naqvi, and said she “feels [Beaudoin] has lost control of the election.”
Beaudoin said she does not have any conflict of interest or biases.
“They have made public my prejudice which is not there at all, I am 100 per cent not biased in the situation,” Beaudoin said, and added that all decisions were made as a team with Zachary Meier, the deputy electoral officer.
– Photo by Trevor Swann
