The Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) announced its elections will be held later this month in a virtual meeting on Feb. 28.
Residence students will vote virtually for next year’s president, vice president (administration) and vice president (programming) on March 21 and 22. Candidates running for one of RRRA’s three executive positions will campaign from March 15-20. An all-candidates debate will be held publicly on Zoom on March 17.
RRRA’s chief electoral officer Saiyara Elahi presented the writ of election.
Candidates can run independently or as part of a slate, making this the second year independent candidates have been allowed to run for executive office at RRRA. Candidates discussed the association’s electoral slate system at last year’s all-candidates debate, and the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) has faced similar critiques.
Candidate campaign budgets were also changed. Independent candidates’ budgets were raised from $150 to $200, and slates’ budgets were decreased from $350 to $300. Elahi said that would lessen slates’ financial advantage over independent candidates.
“We just moved that $50 around to make the scales a bit more balanced,” Elahi said.
While candidates will be able to campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and personal websites, campaigning on Discord and Reddit is banned.
“The difficulties that we’ve had on those platforms in the past have really kind of influenced us making this decision,“ Elahi said. “We want candidates to be respectful to each other and respectful to everyone.”
Last year, CUSA paused campaigning due to harassment on social media.
Mass-messaging students with automated services or robots is also banned.
While Elahi’s writ of election restricted campaigning to social media and the internet, the association voted to allow candidates to put up posters in Residence Commons. Stormont councillor Davin Caratao, who presented the motion, said postering would make campaigning more equitable for candidates with less of a social media presence.
Elahi’s writ also stated candidates may only campaign to students by phone and messaging with their explicit consent. Caratao moved to strike this restriction. President Sami Islam said the restriction, while a nice gesture, would not be effective.
“If I’m getting one message with all these clauses [asking for consent,] I don’t think it’s very materially different from just getting the one message with the information anyways,” Islam said.
Council voted to allow campaigning by postering and individual messaging.
The association also voted to amend RRRA policy 2.0 to include legislation banning executives from being an executive or officer of any other student governments on campus. Councillors of other campus associations will still be able to hold an executive position on RRRA. Caratao said this would ensure RRRA executives uphold their responsibilities to the association and students.
“It maintains their independence and makes sure that our executives are—at the very least level—committed to the functioning of our organization and not within others,” Caratao said.
Islam added candidates will be able to run for executive positions on RRRA as well for other organizations.
“It’s perhaps in bad taste to run for both and I would hope that students recognize that and don’t vote for someone who’s trying to grab as many positions as they can,” Islam said. “There’s a cost to running by-elections and it’s inconvenient for the student body.”
Executives will be elected through a ranked voting system, where students rank candidates instead of their vote being tallied.
While RRRA has not yet scheduled its next meeting, Elahi said she would be able to amend the writ of election to be passed at an emergency council meeting in the next week.
Featured graphic by Sierra Mclean.
