College Election Voting Mistakes

By Adam Coe

A muck-up with YUSU’s online voting system led to non-Halifax students voting for the Halifax Vice-President for Activities to the irritation of all involved.

A screenshot leaked to Vision (above) shows the James College vote. The uncontested Halifax position was also listed on other college voting options. Matt Wehrle was announced as the new Vice-Chair for activities last night, but the numbers remain skewed.

The candidates themselves were largely unaware of the discrepancy until Vision approached them with the information yesterday. Neither YUSU, nor the returning officers made the mistake known to those affected. Only one of the candidates that Vision approached, Arthur Barrow, seemed to know anything about the error, having heard it through hear-say in James College.

Ozge Bektasoglu, who ran for President of the HCSA told Vision that her initial reaction was one of “confusion”, describing the matter as “unfair”. She felt that it reflected a general opinion of some not necessarily valuing the collegiate student bodies as an important part of university life.

She continued, “I feel an apology from YUSU is in order, and a promise that this will never happen again.”

Matt Wehrle himself was stoic on issue, saying yesterday, “I don’t see a real need for a re-vote”. He said that the uncontested nature of the vote lessened the impact but the wider implications with regard to such mistakes were of serious concern.

“How can we be certain this will not happen again?” he asked, before suggesting that the system that allowed such mistakes should be re-evaluated.

One James College student told Vision, “I’m not proud of myself but I RONned the result for fun, seemed like a funny thing to do at the time.”

Dan Walker, YUSU Democracy and Services Officer revealed it had been an effect of an error on the “back end of the website” and that he had dealt with the problem as soon as he had heard about it.

He also specified the democratic process for such mistakes, “procedure is dictated at the discretion of the Vice- Chair/President servingas returning officer. In this case no further action was required.

“I’d also note that through this batch of elections we’ve noted a number of ways in which our election system can be altered to increase efficiency and reduce errors.”