Elections, shmelections

As the school year wraps up, the McMaster community saw its usual tidal wave of elections. As different faculty societies and the McMaster Students Union select their representatives for the year, questions of the efficacy of the MSU Elections Department arise.

During the MSU presidential elections, the voter turnout was 28 per cent, a large dip from the previous year’s 41.6 per cent voter turnout. Students have vocalized their inability to vote in elections because they had not received the electronic ballot via email, which the typical way elections are facilitated through the MSU Elections Department.

To solve this issue, the MSU Elections Department has been investigating any technical issues with the MSU’s voting system, Simply Voting, according to their Feb. 28 Executive Board report.

In their report, it states that the Simply Voting database informed the MSU Elections Department that students are receiving emails, making it difficult to pinpoint where the exact issue is. MSU Elections Department has also consulted with McMaster University Technology Services, and it is highly unlikely that their filters are blocking voting emails.

What they suspect is most likely occurring is that students are marking elections emails as junk mail.

“[Simply Voting has] mentioned that a significant portion of electors have unsubscribed from email blasts in the past or marked them as ‘spam’. When this happens, Simply Voting can no longer send that individual an email, even for a new election,” read the report.

"A significant portion of electors have unsubscribed from email blasts in the past or marked them as 'spam'. When this happens, Simply Voting can no longer send that individual an email, even for a new election." 

 

MSU Elections Department
Executive Board Report

The MSU Elections Department hopes to implement a system where the Chief Returning Officer may see all those who have unsubscribed from Simply Voting’s email list and send a supplementary email asking if they wish to participate in an upcoming election. They hope to have this implemented by the end of the year.

The MSU Elections Department not only runs the elections for MSU elections, but many clubs within the McMaster community. Their service also facilitates the elections for four major faculty societies: the McMaster Science Society, the McMaster Humanities Society, the McMaster Social Science Society and the McMaster Engineering Society.

During this year’s MSS election, all ballots cast through Simply Voting were rendered invalid and redone.

“It has come to our attention that not all students were provided with a link to vote in the MSS Presidential Election today. As well, we noticed that students in Kinesiology were not eligible to vote in the election. We recognize this is an issue and creates an inequitable election process by creating barriers to students’ ability to vote,” read a portion of a letter released by MSS president Connor MacLean on Feb. 8. Neither the president nor the MSS vice president (Internal Affairs) nor MSS vice president (External Affairs) responded when the Silhouette requested an interview.

The MES also faced issues during their elections this year, when the current MES president discovered that none of the eligible voters were registered the day voting was set to open.

“Our election was supposed to begin last March 13. On that day, I discovered that none of our students were registered to vote in any election,” said Michael Meier, MES president.

“[The MES] CRO attempted to get in touch with MSU Elections, but received no response for several days. At this point, we began to look for alternative ways to facilitate the election,” said Meier.

Voting opened for MES elections on March 22, about a week after their original start date. The late election has affected the MES’s timeline. Their society was set to have their semi-annual general meeting on March 26, where they ratify their council members.

“The delay in voting has caused concern, as we were worried that the elections would not be completed in time. The technical difficulties surrounding sending out emails has greatly affected our voter turnout. For the presidential elections, we had less than half of our regularturnout,” said Meier.

It is currently unclear if other faculty societies faced similar issues when facilitating their elections. The MSSS did not respond to interview request. When similarly approached, the MHS president Sadaf Rahmanian formally declined to offer a statement.

As the election season winds down, the MSU will continue to investigate what potential issues their service may have when facilitating elections.

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