Your Carleton is appealing the electoral board’s decision to overturn the disqualification of the Change slate, after the board rescinded one of three electoral violations filed against them by the Carleton University Students’ Association elections office.
The Change slate was originally disqualified for three violations, including impersonating a professor. This violation was withdrawn due to new information regarding evidence obtained from the teaching assistant involved in the incident. Once the violation was withdrawn, the board ruled against disqualifying the Change slate.
Craig Handy, Your Carleton’s campaign manager, said the appeal, which was filed Feb. 29, was made because the slate felt new information being presented to the electoral board wasn’t an accurate portrayal of the situation.
“The new information that’s brought to light, to me seems tampered with, seems information that’s not evidence of actually what happened, like backtracking,” Handy said. “I feel like maybe it’s media pressure . . . I just generally have a bad taste in my mouth about the whole entire thing, and I’m just unimpressed with it.”
Adam Carroll, Change’s campaign manager, said he didn’t think there was basis for Your Carleton’s appeal.
Carroll added he is concerned about the members of the constitutional board having conflicts of interest as they campaigned for Your Carleton during the elections.
Handy said the slate’s appeal includes an extensive outline of the situation. He added he felt the electoral board did not spend enough time looking at the case before overturning the disqualification.
Handy said the incident in question could have swung the election and deserved to be fully investigated.
“We’re talking about 21 votes and one seat,” Handy said regarding the narrow margin between the votes for the vice-president (student services) position, which Change’s Ashley Courchene was voted into. “There was a blatant action that was done that very distinctively, in my belief, changed the impact of what the election was, and so that to me is unacceptable.”
Jim Kennelly, the university ombudsman, said the next step in the appeal process is to put together the constitutional board and its alternate members. Once the members have been confirmed, there will be a constitutional meeting to discuss the appeal.
“I’m assuming that the Your Carleton people will want to make a presentation and I’m assuming that those who don’t agree with Your Carleton will want to make a presentation and then the constitutional board can ask questions and such and then they’ll have to go deliberate and decide on the appeal,” Kennelly said.
The board must make a decision within 30 days of the appeal.
“We want to see this process be as fair as possible and we don’t think it currently is so we’re calling on the constitutional board to remove the membership that’s in a conflict of interest,” Carroll said.
Carroll said he has disclosed the conflicts of interest to the council and will be sending evidence to the ombudsman.
Handy maintained every member of the constitutional board is likely to have biases, and pointed out that Courchene, the sole Change nominee who won his executive position, is also a member of the board.
“The constitutional board has procedures in place to have someone who’s in a position of bias either can identify it or be voted out by the other members to excuse themselves,” he added.
“It’s just as easy for them to point fingers saying that there’s people biased towards Your Carleton. I’m telling them right now there’s people biased towards Change . . . I’m confident in the people’s ability to be fair and neutral and be proper in what they’re doing.”
