If 6% of students vote and 55% of them vote for Candidate A, that would mean Candidate A would be elected with less than 4% of the popular vote.
Some might wonder why the predictions are so bleek. Well, in the last General election, where five positions were contested and there was a referendum on the U-Pass, only 8% of students had voted after the second day and roughly 12% had voted after the third one.
This by-election will only have two voting days, no referendums and no other races. You do the math. Some, like the Editor in chief of the Fulcrum, are predicting less than 5%. This is interesting because...
Following the general election, all five elected executive members came on L'Antenne d'Ivoire (CHUO-FM). I asked whether there should be a "minimum" turn-out before the SFUO declares the elections invalid. Seamus Wolfe answered there was a minimum turn-out clause, which is 5%. On the executive, only Julie Séguin and Joël Larose expressed concerns over that low number and both said they would not be against raising it. The other three, Wolfe, Roxanne Dubois and Danika Brisson did not show as much enthousiasm for the idea.
After a quick search of the SFUO Constitution, I found the "minimum clause":
4.17.4.1.1:I just got off the phone with Sylvia Lewis-Havard, Chief electoral officer, and she confirmed that there is no "minimum-clause" for candidates. Which raises the question: Why not?
In order for the result of a referendum to be valid, 5% of all members of the Federation must have exercised their right to vote.
6 comments:
I thought it was 3 %. 5 % NOBODY will get 5 % of the vote!
La dégringolade de la démocratie et l'émergence de l'oligarchie.
Actually, let me rephrase :
There will probably be 5 % of the members of the Fed that will vote.
That being said, I doubt that candidate will have the support of more than 5 % of the members of the student federation, making this a grey area it seems.
Is it 5 % of the total members of the student federation voting for one person or 5 % of the total student body voting?
If it is the latter, we can find ourselves with a candidate being elected with 2 % of the whole student population!
DEUX personnes sur CENT qui vote pour prochain président? Wow!
If we are expierencing record lows in voter turn out its time to step back and have a look for a second.
So where does the problem lie in our elections: Are the people not interested to begin with, or are the candidates not interesting enough?
If anyone could give me an idea of voter turn outs at other universities so that we can have a benchmark to compare ourselves against, that would be great!
HAH!
The problem is certainly not the candidates being uninteresting... were you at the debate?
I think most students come to University to study, and then go home. Their social life is outside the campus and "extra-curricular" stuff, volunteering, clubs and student associations, well, it means nothing to most.
And there's nothing wrong with that! They just don't know what they're missing, or what they pay for, or the power they have to change things. (of course if it's things they don't KNOW about, ex: services, U-pass, events, well then they can't CARE about them...).
I've had considerably smart students (friends of mine) come up to me and say "yeah yeah, I've seen you do those class presentation for the [pointless] election thingies... I've stopped caring about student councils in high school..."
So where IS the problem? COMMUNICATION, promotion, more more more, marketing, getting the word out that there is a thing called the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, SFUO, and that it actually DOES something FOR the students. I asked a 200 student class "who knew here that you could get an essay reviewed for free at the Peer Help Center?" 5? 6 students?
And this promotion should not be done only when elections are coming up, because the SFUO is NOT about elections, but ALL YEAR LONG! 101 week, res presentations, class presentations all year long. Talk to them, give them a reason to vote, they'll vote.
I think if the candidates can't mobilize students when their own future's are on the line, they they can't do it for the SFUO as President. Here's hoping they can get the students out.
I did a few class presentation in Marion Auditorium for the BOA elections, and got 1 hand for who knew what BOA was! Pretty pathetic. Let's see if we can't change that...
A referendum being invalidated is the statu quo. For sure you wouldn't want to increase anyone's levy with less than 5% turnout. Actually I think that figure should be raised at both the SFUO or GSAÉD level.
But for the general elections, if they are invalidated you do not have the statu quo. You have no executive for the next year! That would have been the case last year at GSAÉD...
Sure, we want to increase student participation and awareness. But how can you do it when you don't even have an elected executive?
Post a Comment