Election draws to an end

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Following a three-week long election period, the race for MSU President has finally come to an end.

After Sarah Jama’s reinstatement into the presidential race and the retabulation of votes on Friday, Feb. 5, Justin Monaco-Barnes remained the winner of the 2016 presidential election. Jama came in second overall, and Jonathon Tonietto fell to third place.

Justin Monaco-Barnes is now officially the MSU President for the 2016-2017 year. Some highlights from his platform to look forward to in the next year and a half include: his promise to print cheaper courseware through Underground, work towards sustainability at McMaster and efforts to continue addressing sexual violence on campus. The Silhouette interviewed Monaco-Barnes for our Feb. 4 issue which can be found on our Issuu page.

Sarah Jama was initially disqualified due to charges of misrepresenting expenses to the Elections Committee and a severe violation of “bad taste.”

The Elections Department released the minutes for the Jan. 28 post-election period meeting alongside the appeal decision. Following Bylaw 10 of the elections process, disqualification was briefly considered for Monaco-Barnes, Gill and Tonietto as well.

To counter the claim that she spent $500 on her website, Jama presented evidence that her campaign website was designed by a volunteer on her team who is also a co-founder of a website design company. Jama chose to display his logo on her website to promote the volunteer’s company as a sign of gratitude for his volunteer work. However, Jama told The Silhouette that she was still fined for not including her website designer as a part of her core team.

Jama’s campaign was also fined for a controversial retweet by one of her volunteers of an anonymous account that accused another candidate of sexual assault.  The CRO acknowledged, as the candidate herself posted on her Facebook page, that Jama took quick action to delete the tweet and remove two members from her team.

The retweet played a significant role in Jama’s initial disqualification. However, as stated in a press release by the MSU, following their deliberations on Feb. 5 the Elections Committee decided that the tweet did not significantly affect the integrity of the election.

With the end of perhaps the most contentious MSU election in nearly a decade, we can all go back to forgetting about student politics until the Student Representative Assembly elections in early March. See you then.

Photo Credit: Michael Gallagher/ Production Editor

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