Piper Plavins confirmed as MSU president-elect following appeal

Final ruling confirms Piper Plavins as MSU president-elect, bringing election process to a close after appeal deliberations

Following the resolution of a disqualification appeal, Piper Plavins has been officially confirmed as the next president of the McMaster Students Union. The appeal, initiated by the request of presidential candidate Olami Olalere, was dismissed after two levels of review, finalizing the results of the 2025 MSU presidential election.

Olalere was disqualified from the race after accumulating a combination of standard and severe campaign violations.

In an interview with The Silhouette, Sinead Gono, the chief returning officer of the elections department of the MSU, said that Olalere received a total of nine standard violations and two severe violations.

Under MSU election rules, surpassing half of the spending limit in fines—$200.00 of the $400.00 limit—results in automatic disqualification. A standard fine is worth $15.00 and a severe fine is worth $35.00. Additionally, Olalere received $42.00 in poster violations for a total of 21 poster violations valued at $2.00 each, as per presidential election rule 7.10.4. In total, Olalere accumulated $247.00 in fines.

“The rules are very specific and I feel that they’re quite clearly laid out . . . There’s a threshold and if you pass that in terms of monetary value, then you get automatically disqualified. That’s what happened in this case,” said Gono.

After his disqualification, Olalere filed an appeal in two stages. According to Gono, in the first stage, the MSU Elections Committee reviewed his objections and overturned only one $0.00 violation, which did not impact his total fine amount.

In the second stage, the Elections Appeal Board, which is an independent panel consisting of the MSU deputy speaker, the university secretariat and a member of the McMaster community, upheld the original decisions in full. As a result, Olalere remained disqualified and his name was removed from the official ballot.

Due to the MSU’s ranked-choice voting system, votes cast for Olalere were not discarded. Instead, they were redistributed to the next-ranked candidates on each ballot.

“There’s no erasing of votes . . . They now consider the other ranked options,” said Gono.

Gono emphasized that the elections department followed its policies and treated all candidates equally.

“We did the best that we could on our end. We followed the process that we always follow . . . The rules are pretty set in stone and we try to make them as clear as possible,” said Gono.

This year’s election cycle also saw a rise in voter turnout. Gono credited the increase to coordinated efforts by both the elections department, the MSU as a whole and the efforts of the candidates themselves.

“There was a union-wide goal of reaching 20 per cent turnout . . . We worked tirelessly on promotions and events . . . The candidates also made this election really exciting for students . . . I also think we’re seeing a natural rebound in student engagement post-COVID,” said Gono.

The final certified results have officially confirmed Piper Plavins as MSU president-elect. She is set to begin her one-year term on May 1, 2025.