The Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) council voted down an amendment to its electoral code that would have allowed candidates to campaign on Reddit in its Feb. 28 meeting.
The council also passed amendments to the association’s impeachment process to make the proceedings less vague.
The motion to include Reddit as a campaigning platform, which was moved by councillor Mira Gillis, faced stiff opposition from chief electoral officer Frederic Diebel, who argued the platform does not allow for accountability.
“The anonymous culture of Reddit does not give the elections team much wiggle room to moderate candidates’ behaviour that may go outside of the electoral code,” Diebel said.
Diebel said the r/CarletonU subreddit would not be a fair and free platform, as posts can be filtered by moderators who are not on the elections team.
The motion would have required candidates to submit their Reddit usernames to the elections office and, if they are a moderator of the subreddit, step down from their role for the duration of the election period.
“Reddit is a very large social media platform that some students may use as opposed to [the other approved platforms],” Gillis said. “It would allow for candidates to reach a larger demographic if they so choose.”
Council originally passed the electoral code Feb. 7 excluding Reddit as a campaigning platform. Permitted platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
The decision to bar campaigning on Reddit in this year’s Carleton University Students’ Association election drew condemnation from r/CarletonU moderators, along with then-candidate and current CUSA president-elect Matt Gagné.
Voting for the RRRA elections is scheduled for March 22 and 23.
Council amends impeachment
Council modified the association’s impeachment policy to specify the procedure for removing an executive from office. The changes, which passed with broad support, were moved by Davin Caratao, councillor and chair of the constitutional and policy review committee.
“I think it’s mainly a bunch of common sense provisions that will make the organization a little more fair,” Caratao said.
As per the amendments, impeachment of a RRRA executive will begin with a simple majority vote by council recommending impeachment.
Next, a special meeting will be held to introduce evidence for or against the executive. By a seven-eighths vote of council or a two-thirds vote of at least 200 association members, the executive can be removed.
The amendments also add grounds for impeachment, which include malicious financial mismanagement, violating the constitution, failure to keep good academic standing, or committing a crime.
Previously, the impeachment policy only specified the removal of an executive based on a two-thirds vote of at least 200 members.
One executive could also be removed by the vote of two other executive members, a provision which was removed because of the addition of independent candidates in this year’s election.
Vote on changing building representation fails
Caratao also moved to amend the allocation of council members by building. Council voted in October to change floor representatives to building representatives to increase student involvement in RRRA.
The amendment, which would have increased the number of council seats by 17 to 80 total, changed allocation to building population, instead of the number of floors.
For example, under the proposed changes, Lennox and Addington building would have received 16 seats, as opposed to its current 10 seats.
Multiple councillors expressed concerns that some floors could be overrepresented on council and not share the problems of other floors in their building. Others worried RRRA would not have enough student engagement to fill the seats.
Council voted down the proposed amendment.
