Carleton University’s Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) approved a motion to postpone voting days in its election from March at a virtual meeting on March 14.
Voting days are now scheduled to take place on April 7 and 8. The original dates for a March election timeline were not presented.
Mackenzie Mumby, councillor for the School of Public Policy and Administration, called the motion “problematic” prior to the vote, saying the month of April is too busy for graduate students to participate in an election. He instead offered to keep the election as scheduled or postpone it even further to May or June.
“If GSA’s intention is to get the [lowest] voter participation, then April is the way to go,” he said.
Rae Landriau, vice president (operations), said the voting period will take place before exams.
President Chi-Chi Ayalogu said Mumby’s concerns were valid but disagreed saying the April 2020 election had the “highest voter turnout ever” due to the increased accessibility of online voting.
The April 2020 election saw a voter turnout of 754 people, just 19.5 per cent of eligible voters, according to the GSA website.
Ayalogu added that due to executive terms being over at the end of April, a May or June election would not be possible. She said there was no precedent for lengthening executive terms for the sole purpose of delaying elections.
Mumby said he doubted the effectiveness of the proposed delay given issues with GSA’s communication to students and said “just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean it’s right.”
The motion passed with only two councillors voting in opposition.
GSA is not the only student governing body that has delayed their election.
The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections office cancelled the March 9 and 10 voting days following a blackout period announced on March 4.
CUSA elections voting days were originally scheduled for Feb. 16 and 17 but were delayed due to an “unexpectedly low number of interested candidates,” chief electoral officer (CEO) Nicolas Gil Ocampo told the Charlatan in February.
Low participation in council and among students
GSA council also canceled a previously proposed motion to reallocate the unused peer support budget to form one-time mental health grants for graduate students. The motion stated the cancellation was a result of “staff being at maximum capacity.”
During a Feb. 21 meeting of council, Landriau said the motion would reallocate around $6,000 to $7,000 in unused funds to create 12 or 14 mental health grants of $500. How that money will be spent was not specified.
Council also voted to lower the number of student signatures required for executive candidacy from 10 to five, which the motion stated was due to “decreased graduate student interaction faced during online/distanced learning.”
GSA bylaws were amended to have the deadline for candidate nominations be given to CEOs one week prior to the election voting period rather than on the last business day prior to one week before the election date.
Vice president (finance) Hemant Gupta announced the deadline for applications for the Indigenous student award has been extended to March 25, as no one had applied.
Mumby asked what executives were doing to promote the award, saying he and other councillors hadn’t seen anything about it.
Gupta and Ayalogu cited the vacancy of a director of communications as a possible reason for the lack of outreach.
“A lot of the issue is with operational capacity,” said Ayalogu. “We will try harder to improve in that area.”
The application for the Indigenous student award is available on the GSA website.
Ayalogu said GSA has received and is reviewing a number of applications for the vacant director of communications position.
She also informed council one of the five members of the graduate faculty board (GFB) had stepped down and a volunteer was needed to take their place until the end of April.
The role of the GFB is to report to Senate and oversee the administration and content of graduate studies at Carleton, according to the GSA website.
There were no volunteers among the present members of council, leaving the position vacant.
GSA has not yet scheduled its next meeting.
Featured image from Screengrab.
