On Thursday, February 14, Matt Stuart and Ricky McCarthy were declared winners in the 2008 CBU Students’ Union General Election. It was an interesting election in which low voter turnout, a protest campaign and acts of God did everything they could to complicate matters for the Chief Returning Officer, Aaron Fisher. After the polls were closed and the ballots counted, the unofficial results were 82.4 percent for Stuart and McCarthy, 17.4 percent of people voted, “no,” and 0.2 percent of ballots cast were spoiled.
Originally, two teams were supposed to be running for President and Vice President, but one of the teams missed the All Candidates Meeting, a mandatory meeting that you are disqualified for missing. They were granted an appeal with the Election Committee and one member of the disqualified slate showed up late. After their appeal was denied by the Election Committee they rogue slate attempted to appeal the Election Committee’s decision to the union’s board. This had never been tried before and the union’s by-laws were unsurprisingly vague as to whether the board could actual overturn the decision of the Elections Committee. The board decided they could not veto the early disqualification and the rogue slate was sent packing for a second time.
What do we know about this rogue slate whose perceived alienation was not enough to motivate them to mobilize a successful protest vote? The slate was composed of Jeff Black and Guitar Phil (I have not heard his last name). Jeff Black was running for President and his involvement in the Students’ Union was limited to a stint on the board; he was removed from the board after he failed to show up for meetings. Phil, to my knowledge, has had very limited involvement in the Students’ Union and since Mr. Black’s involvement was cut short by his absence we can say his knowledge was equally limited. Maybe it was better they were disqualified to begin with.
Their disqualification meant that there was only one slate running and students had to vote either “yes” or “no” for them. This was the second time in recent history that an acclamation took place and the voter turnout for this non-campaign was even smaller than the last time; a total of 494 people voted out of a student population of more than 2,500. The protest “no” campaign could not even get people interested enough in the election campaign to mobilize a significant portion of the student body. The voter turn out was both pathetic and abysmal.
To complicate matters further for the Chief Returning Officer and Elections Committee, the university was closed down at 6:00 pm on the second day of voting and this meant that there would have to be an additional two hours of voting on Thursday and the results were postponed. Thursday evening the ballots were counted and the results were announced with a dark cloud of a looming appeal hanging over the head of the Election Committee.
The rogue slate that has been the monkey wrench to the election’s gears has said they are considering appealing the results. I certainly hope they drop the matter. They have been turned down twice and their appeal will have to go to the union’s board, a group that already turned them away once. They claim they were told the wrong date of the All Candidates Meeting and I would be tempted to believe them if they did not show up late for the second meeting.
Mr. Black missed several board meetings before he was removed, missed the All Candidates Meeting and then the slate was late for their appeal; I see a pattern.
Originally published in the Cape Breton Post on Monday, February 18, 2008.
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