The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) are gearing up for their 2016-17 elections with all executive positions running uncontested with the exception of the position of vice-president (operations), which has three people in the running.
The voting days will be March 22 and 23, according to the GSA website. The dates coincide with the voting days for the GSA health plan referendum, which asks students ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for annual increase of $70 to keep the current health, dental, and accident insurance plan coverage.
Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, the current co-ordinator of the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) Womyn’s Centre, is running for the position of president under the slate Grads United.
The Grads United slate also includes Taylor Howarth, who is running for vice-president (finance), Jenna Amirault, candidate for vice-president (internal), William Felepchuk, candidate for vice-president (academic), and Eric Hitsman, candidate for vice-president (operations).
Independent candidates Rashi Bahri and Anujna Nagaraj are also in the running for vice-president (operations).
Current GSA president Michael Bueckert said it is common for most of the positions to be acclaimed.
“I think there are reasons why it’s the tradition . . . It’s quite common for GSA elections to be relatively uncontested,” Bueckert said. “It’s a huge time commitment on top of people who are starting graduate school in particular . . . A lot of people are really reluctant to keep it on.”
Bueckert added the GSA is not polarized politically. “There’s quite a lot of consensus on things that the GSA should be working on and so it is possible that people might be fairly content with a lot of the things that are happening,” he said.
This year, unlike previous years, graduate students are given the option of voting ‘No’ for a candidate that is running uncontested.
“Previously we never had that process, and then last year the seats were all uncontested, and we thought ‘well, this is strange, we’re not having an election, this doesn’t seem right,’ ” Bueckert said.
Paper ballots will be returning this year for the graduate students’ election, as well as the health plan referendum question.
Bueckert said the cost of electronic ballots is too high for the GSA, as it costs at least $10,000 to access the system through Carleton.
“The university has total control, we have to pay them huge amounts of money,” Bueckert said. “Our elections right now are more like $5,000, and that includes hiring students as poll clerks.”
“It would be a massively more substantial budget without paying students to do that work, and so it just hasn’t made sense for the GSA,” Bueckert said.
