[spacer height="20px"]By Angela Dittrich
As young adults, we experience a lot of exciting and important milestones — getting our driver’s license, attaining legal adulthood and entering university, college or the workforce. An often overlooked milestone is becoming a voter, or rather, becoming individuals with a rarely-exercised right to vote.
McMaster University students are a vital part of the Ward 1 community, and yet we continuously fail to show up to the polling stations. And before I continue, yes, you can vote here. Not only can you vote here, you should — whether you live in residence, in a student home, or commute from another part of the city.
On October 22nd, 2018, The Municipal Elections will take place to determine the new Mayor and Ward Councillors for the Hamilton area. Get your voice heard by voting is upcoming election. #MacVotes https://t.co/Q9arEqrdc0 pic.twitter.com/kALkZgbmTw
— McMaster Humanities (@mcmasterhum) October 12, 2018
Hamilton, for better or worse, is your home for on average four years of undergrad, and potentially beyond. Electoral issues such as housing, transit, and safety affect every one of us on a daily basis. If we speak up and elect a councillor willing to listen, we can influence real change in this city. This election, I urge you to consider some of these major issues, evaluate what matters most to you, and make certain your opinion is heard.
With 25,000 undergraduate students and only 4000 beds on campus, navigating through off-campus housing, landlords, and leases is part of the typical McMaster student experience. Unfortunately, there are homes packed to over-capacity, absent or negligent landlords and rising costs of rent which create levels of stress beyond what students should be experiencing.
As well, safety has become a major concern for many student housing neighbourhoods due to an increased number of break-ins this year. We are much more than university students; we are members of this community. We need to elect a councillor who will make housing a priority, hold landlords accountable, and address our safety concerns to make our neighbourhoods a better and safer place.
One of the most defining features of this election is transit. The fate of our proposed light rail transit system hangs in the balance as Doug Ford threatens to revoke the promised provincial funding. While transit is not the most exciting issue, it significantly impacts our everyday lives. McMaster would house an LRT terminal, providing us with a faster and more reliable way to get around and explore the city. The McMaster Students Union has taken a pro-LRT stance, and if we want this project to succeed, our Ward 1 councillor and mayor must be on board.
A more current issue is the Hamilton Street Railway. In 2017, students voted to increase tuition fees in exchange for expanded HSR service. However, last fall, there were over 200 hours of missed bus service each week, to the point where students could not rely on public transit to arrive to their exams on time. McMaster students are the HSR’s largest rider group, contributing over $4.5 million annually, yet we are constantly overlooked in times of financial stress. By voting, we show the city that our transit needs must be valued, and that the level of service provided needs to match our financial contributions.
If you’re still unsure, think about it this way — your voice is just as powerful, just as important, and just as valued as those who have lived in Hamilton for decades. We are all impacted by at least one key issue in this election: housing, transit, safety, the environment, student relations, student job opportunities, or economic growth.
But voting comes with great responsibility. Take the time to research the Ward 1 and mayoral candidates, as well as their stances on the key issues. Many young adults feel like their vote doesn’t matter, and unfortunately, by the way we are viewed by most of city council, that feeling makes sense. But this can change if we vote.
Go out to lunch with your friends and swing by the voting station. Talk to your classmates about why you’re planning to vote. Make a post on social media about your voting experience or issues that matter to you. We should all leave a place better than we found it, and making your voice heard in this Hamilton election is an incredible first step. On Oct. 22, make your vote count. See you at the polls, Marauders.
For information on Ward 1 councillor candidate platforms:
[button link="https://www.thesil.ca/meet-your-ward-1-councillor-candidates" color="red"]VIEW ALL CANDIDATE PLATFORMS[/button]
Questions on how to vote?
[button link="https://www.thesil.ca/ward-1-voting-101-a-voting-guide-for-mac-students" color="red"]WARD 1 VOTING GUIDE[/button]
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By Donna Nadeem
Following of last year’s particularly low McMaster Students Union presidential voter turnout rate and suspicions that not all students received an email allowing them to vote, the MSU elections department has been making key changes to its email voting system.
In particular, MSU elections department investigated any technical issues with the MSU’s voting system Simply Voting. Ultimately, they found out that any students who marked MSU’s election emails as junk mail did not receive future emails from the MSU due to Canadian anti-spam legislation.
The elections department not only runs the elections for the MSU but for many clubs and faculty societies within the McMaster community. For instance, their services also facilitate the elections for four major faculty societies: the McMaster Science Society, McMaster Engineering Society, the McMaster Humanities Society and the McMaster Social Science Society.
[spacer height="20px"]As such, Simply Voting plays a significant role in facilitating voting in McMaster’s student elections.
This year, the elections department worked with Simply Voting to introduce Mac ID authentication into the voting system. This means that students will no longer need just their email to gain access to their ballot. Using the link to msumcmaster.ca/vote, students can now also use their McMaster login credentials to vote. Ballots remain secret and identifiable information is not collected.
“The new system was tested this past summer and during First Year Council Election which just finished, and no issues were reported,” said Uwais Patel, the MSU elections department chief returning officer.
Conveniently, the integration of Mac ID means that students can access their ballot without receiving an email.
“We will continue to schedule initial invitations to vote and periodic reminders to those who have not voted yet,” said Patel. “Moving forward, the email blasts sent should ensure maximum deliverability, but will be complemented with the promotion of our new voting link. Regardless, students will be able to access their ballot easily,” said Patel.
Moving to a MAC ID authentication system is expected to make voting more accessible and the process of voting more reliable. Voters are no longer reliant on email messages generated by Simply Voting to login.
This year, there was an unprecedented number of candidates running in the FYC elections, with 12 simultaneous elections occurring during the campaigning and polling periods. This was the first test for the new voting method, no issues with which were reported.
Voter turnout for the 2018 MSU FYC chair and vice chair election was only 21.6 per cent, with 1,373 students voting this year. Turnout for residence chair elections sat at 31.8 per cent, with 665 students voting. However, this marked a notable rise from last year’s 14.6 per cent FYC voter turnout.
The feedback received revealed that students appreciated being able to use the msumcmaster.ca/vote link to promote voting themselves.
On the FYC ballot, an optional question asked students for feedback regarding the work of the department. In the coming weeks, the MSU elections department will be carefully looking though those comments for more insight into potential future service enhancements.
“Email is simply one communication tool to drive voters to the voting link where the login to a ballot will be located. Therefore, spam filters will not have any impact on the election process,” said Patel.
However, students still need to click the link in the first place. In addition, the number of students who voted in the FYC election was quite low compared to the total first year student population. With these technological changes to the voting system, only future elections will tell if voter turnout will make a comeback in the winter presidential race.
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In about a month, cities all over Ontario will hold their municipal election, elections which will dictate the political landscape for these cities for years to come. The results of this election can bring all sorts of changes to the neighbourhood and yet the city offers little to students to participate, further exemplifying that the city of Hamilton doesn’t care about McMaster students.
Voting stations are scattered all throughout Westdale and Ainslie Wood, mostly at churches and public schools. The voting station for McMaster University’s address, 1280 Main Street West, is at Binkley Church, which is 1570 Main Street West, far away from any major student residences.
For first-year students living in on-campus residence, putting a voting station on campus would not only allow them to vote with ease, but it would also help foster an interest in municipal politics and stress the importance of participating in the electoral process at all levels of government.
It’s not as if having a voting station on campus is unheard of; during the 2015 federal election, McMaster University had a voting station which allowed students to vote on campus. I was a first-year student at the time, and I distinctly remember my classmates excitedly voting for the first time because of the convenience.
There is also little evidence of any sort of outreach program by the city. There has not been any major social media campaigns promoting the election and outside of some postering in Westdale and Ainslie Wood, there is no trace of the election in these neighbourhoods outside of candidate campaigning. The McMaster Students Union has launched its usual voting campaigns, but the job of getting students invested in municipal politics should not fall on the student union.
The Municipal Election is Monday, October 22 - in addition, there are 5 ADVANCE poll dates available for voters. Full Election details: https://t.co/tt4eeHHe9x. #HamOnt #HamiltonVotes18 pic.twitter.com/4rcLntjLa1
— City of Hamilton (@cityofhamilton) September 20, 2018
McMaster students time and time again prove that they’re politically engaged; we consistently have one of the highest voter turnouts for our student union elections and have a multitude of candidates at every level of student politics. There are even two recent McMaster graduates running in the municipal election.
The city of Hamilton has a contentious relationship with McMaster students, as evidenced by their rather extreme reaction to last year’s Homecoming block party in Westdale. During the whole frenzy surrounding that event, the city seemed to have forgot that the party was immediately cleaned up the next day by a group of volunteers.
This year, the city of Hamilton increased policing in student neighbourhoods, despite there being little evidence of such a party happening again.
Compared to other universities, such as Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario, McMaster students are downright boring. Could you imagine the number of volunteers that would be necessary to clean up Western’s FoCo or any other similar event? McMaster volunteers were able to clean up Dalewood Street in a single Sunday.
McMaster students are an important part of the Westdale and Ainslie Wood community, and yet they are blamed for issues like landlord negligence, made obvious through the city’s decision to increase by-law policing in Ward 1, despite multiple students pointing out that by-law maintenance usually falls under the landlord’s jurisdiction.
The city of Hamilton does little to limit the movement of talent away from their city, and instead antagonizes students. Putting voting stations on campus would not only allow more students to vote in this upcoming election, it would also act as an act of good faith; the city offering an olive branch in the form of the electoral process.
Like a lot of McMaster students, I enjoy living in Hamilton. It’s been my home for over three years now and I would prefer to stay here when I graduate. But the city’s failure to even attempt to engage young people in municipal politics only illustrates that our voices are not important to them. If the city expects students to stay in Hamilton, they’re going to have to completely revamp their approach to municipal elections.
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By Maanvi Dhillon
On Oct. 22, Ontarians will be heading to the polls for the second time this year to cast their ballots in an election. Hamilton’s municipal election will decide the mayor and ward councillors for the next four years, and the McMaster Students Union has been working hard on a campaign aimed at increasing student voter turnout.
In particular, the MSU Education team will be rolling out another #MacVotes campaign to keep students informed about the upcoming election and to motivate them to cast a vote. An important initiative will be the Ward 1 candidates’ debate, which will be happening in the MUSC atrium on Oct. 16.
As Shemar Hackett, associate vice president (Municipal Affairs), explains, it is crucial that voters are informed when they cast their ballot.
“The candidate who wins this election will represent Ward 1 for the next four years, which is why it is imperative that students are critical and research all the candidates before going to the polls on Oct. 22,” said Hackett.
The Municipal Election is Monday, October 22 - in addition, there are 5 ADVANCE poll dates available for voters. Full Election details: https://t.co/tt4eeHHe9x. #HamOnt #HamiltonVotes18 pic.twitter.com/4rcLntjLa1
— City of Hamilton (@cityofhamilton) September 20, 2018
The rest of the #MacVotes campaign will involve extensive promotion, both online and in-person. An official website will highlight advanced polling locations, platforms summaries and identification needed to vote.
In addition, the MSU will advocate for issues that have been selected as priorities under the umbrellas of transportation and housing.
One transit priority entails eliminating area rating, a controversial system that allows wards to pay different tax rates for municipal services. This initiative allows suburban and rural communities to pay less than older Hamilton wards to compensate for their purported decreased access to certain services.
With respect to housing, the MSU will be pushing for Hamilton to toughen up housing regulation by moving forward with a bylaw that requires landlords to be formally licensed. This would help protect off-campus students who often encounter unsafe living conditions in their rental homes but are left vulnerable by the lack of proactive enforcement of safety standards and bylaws.
In the wake of a string of break-ins in Westdale, safety has also become a growing concern for off-campus students. Questions are being raised about the effectivity of police responses to these incidents and to student safety at large. This may also become a deciding issue for student voters.
Overall, students make up a large and influential portion of the electorate in Ward 1. According to a profile of the Ward, the fastest growing demographic are those between twenty and twenty-four. This means McMaster students can have a significant sway in the election results should they turn out in large numbers.
However, it remains unclear whether many students will actually vote. The most recent MSU presidential election had an unusually low turnout rate of 28 per cent. Despite this, Ward 1 has historically has had some of the highest turnout rates in the city.
Stephanie Bertolo, MSU vice president (Education), understands the potential power of student voters.
“By voting in this municipal election, students are able to have a major impact on the decisions made in the City of Hamilton over the next four years,” Bertolo said. “Each individual vote adds up to better transit, safer housing, and more opportunities for students before and after graduation. It shows the city that we are a major stakeholder and that they must listen to us.”
The stakes are high for students in this municipal election, and the MSU will be pushing to spread that message. Whether that is enough to get students out to vote, however, is a question that can only be answered on Oct. 22.
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This article will hit newsstands on the same day as Ontario’s 42nd general election. I’ll be making my way to the polls, but a large number of Ontarians, specifically younger adults, won’t be.
Ontario’s election turnouts are among the lowest in the country. A dismal 51 per cent of Ontarians showed up to the 2014 Ontario vote, not terribly far off from a frankly embarrassing 43 per cent who cast their ballot in the 2011 election.
To make matters worse, only 34 per cent of young people, aged 18 to 24, said they bothered to vote in the 2014 election. While new reports have found that millennials are becoming more mindful of their democratic right, only about 43 per cent of young Ontarians said they were “extremely likely” to vote in the 2018 provincial election.
This will the first provincial election in which more millennials will be eligible to vote than baby boomers. That means young people have a significant amount of power to take issues that are important to them into their own hands.
The fact is, a large portion of the issues at stake in the June 7 election are ours to lose. Transit plans, talks of student debt relief, health and dental coverage and environmental impacts are among the many issues that will affect young people this election, and for that matter, voting is integral.
So, why aren’t young people voting?
There are several reasons why young people may think their vote doesn’t matter, or that they’re lacking the information to properly exercise our democratic right.
Young people are reportedly twice as likely to believe that they can’t cast their vote because they don’t think that they’re registered on a voter list. They’re also 51 per cent more likely to say that we lack enough information to make an informed decision during an election.
Some reports say that the explanation behind this mentality may rest in the lack of exposure to traditional mainstream media. 40 per cent of young people say that they rely on social media as a political news source, while roughly 57 per cent of all adults say they rely on mainstream media, including newspapers, and TV for their political coverage.
At this point, these are genuinely insufficient excuses.
There are various initiatives that are pushing the youth vote. Elections Ontario launched an e-registration platform that allows users to check and edit their information online. The McMaster Students Union held an all candidates debate on May 29. Various organizations are coming together to encourage young people to get informed.
As for the lack of knowledge regarding candidate information, it is genuinely easier than ever to review a candidate’s platform online. Some outlets have even compiled and organized information from each major candidate’s platform, making research a simple task.
For democracy to work properly, people need to cast a ballot. With stakes as high as they are in this election, it is more important than ever to let your voice be heard. On June 7, vote as you please, but please vote.
[CORRECTION: on June 7, we published that McMaster University hosted an all candidates debate on May 29. However, the debate was fully funded by the McMaster Students Union.]
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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This week has the McMaster student body gearing us up for the event of the year — the MSU’s General Assembly! Just joking, no one actually cares that much about the GA.
Typing that last sentence, I feel a pang of remorse for all those that have dedicated time to planning this year’s assembly (hell, I even feel bad for my own staff because we take the time to report on it each year). But the reason most students genuinely do not care that much about the GA is because most students have, unfortunately, grown accustomed to the fact that Mac doesn’t always care that much about our feedback.
Let me preface this by saying, I do not think that Mac never considers our feedback. But historically, in part thanks to logistics, policy framework, and general challenges that come from working with thousands of students, it can sometimes be challenging for our university to hear and interpret our feedback.
The GA functions as a public forum where students can voice their concerns related to the MSU and all trepidations can be motioned and eventually voted upon. Sounds pretty democratic, right? Well, not completely. The GA is often dominated by a few motions that overshadow “smaller” issues students want to bring up, making it hard for all voices to be heard. In addition, for a motion at the GA to be passed, the assembly itself needs at least three percent of the student body, so roughly 650 students, present at the event. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but historically this number has been hard to reach. What is supposed to be the most democratic form of discussion for students has its limits.
And the GA isn’t the only student-driven method that has its barriers. Every year we fill out course evaluations, create petitions and write countless articles asking for change, but don’t always see it, or even hear people acknowledging our feedback. Take for instance the yearly petition that students have created to request their majors be listed on their degrees (this year a Google Feedback Form entitled “Program on the McMaster Degree” if you wanted to sign it). For the last few years, students have gone to the university with the same request, and every year their appeal is denied, and as far as the signees can tell, isn’t even acknowledged.
With this as the current standard for accepting student requests and input, it’s not surprising that events like the GA tend to pass by unnoticed by the majority of the student population. Why should students make the extra effort to push forward a change if they feel their voices will not be heard?
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We might be lying to you. We don’t actually know if Justin Monaco-Barnes will be your next MSU President. Given Sarah Jama’s disqualification, which she is appealing this week, it’s possible that if she is successful, the vote recount will tell us that Justin isn’t the winner of this year’s election after all. The truth is that for many people, including most of the candidates, the election isn’t over yet.
However, we made the conscious decision to give Justin the presidential cover page he deserves if he is, at the end of it all, still the president-elect. But we aren’t ruling out the possibility of having another presidential face on our cover next week either.
From an outsider’s perspective, these elections have been messy. However, more than anything else, we have been surprised by the shortcomings of the rules governing MSU elections. Several things have happened in the last week that point to the need for change in how elections are carried out.
The most glaring shortcoming was the public announcement of a candidate’s disqualification without providing clear and detailed reasons behind this conclusion. While the results of the elections were released when the Elections Committee finished their deliberations in the early hours of Jan. 29, the general rules that Sarah Jama broke that led to her disqualification were made public approximately 12 hours later.
The minutes for the meeting, however, are still not posted on the MSU website at the time of this writing. It’s understandable given that the Elections Department wants to make sure the information that they release is accurate and that those involved are also full-time students, but the lack of available information does a disservice to both candidates and the student body.
Currently, Jama’s post is the only place where a student curious about the events that have taken place can find a detailed account. The problem with this account is that it is told through the lens of a candidate who is appealing her disqualification. We emailed the CRO to ask her to confirm the details shared by Jama, however, she did not want to comment on the veracity of the post.
More than failing to provide students with information in a timely manner, the process as it stands now also tarnishes the reputation of the disqualified candidate. When appeals are filed right before the end of the elections period, the targeted candidate does not have the opportunity to respond to the complaint. In the case of severe violations, the candidate should absolutely have the opportunity to present counterevidence before a decision as extreme as this is made. Unfortunately, the current system allows for campaign sabotage, especially if the Elections Committee is failing to reach out to the campaign in question for information. There have been only two presidential candidates disqualified in the MSU’s history, and the last one, in 2008, was overturned following more than a month of discussion. It is clear that disqualifications are rare and the decision to disqualify a candidate should be carefully examined and as transparent as possible.
In a high profile disqualification such as Jama’s — one only has to look at the attention her page’s status on the disqualification has garnered — the current results of the election should not be treated as if they are official. While the MSU Elections Department makes it clear in their post that the results are unofficial, you wouldn’t know that looking at the posts Monaco-Barnes or any of the other candidates made on their Facebook pages.
Several things have happened in the last week that point to the need for change in how elections are carried out.
While we sympathize with the Election Department and Committee’s other responsibilities as students and understand that this is a sensitive process, we also think it is unreasonable to keep the student body in the dark so long after this decision was made. If the Elections Department is aware of its limitations, it should not make drastic announcements based on what appears to be incomplete evidence.
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By: Gabi Herman and Isaac Kinley
From Jan. 26-28, in addition to electing their next McMaster Students Union President, McMaster students will be able to vote in a referendum concerning the election of MSU Vice Presidents. The MSU has three Vice Presidents: Administration, Education and Finance. Currently, the Vice Presidents are elected by the Student Representative Assembly, a student council that includes faculty representatives and the current MSU President and Vice Presidents.
The current referendum will allow students to vote in favour of keeping the current system or switching to an at-large vice presidential election. Since this change would require altering the MSU constitution, the “yes” side will have to garner at least two thirds of the vote in order for it to pass.
The motion was put forward by Eric Gillis (SRA Social Sciences) at the 2015 MSU General Assembly in March. Earlier this school year, the Student Mobilization Syndicate uploaded a petition to Change.org asking that the question of direct election of Vice Presidents be put to McMaster students in a referendum. The petition gathered more than 800 written signatures and subsequently, the SRA voted to hold the referendum. However, going into the campaign period, they voted to maintain a neutral position on the referendum question. Looking forward, students will have to decide where they stand on the issue.
The referendum question, as it will appear on the ballot, is:
This referendum concerns the MSU Vice President elections. Currently, the three Vice President positions are elected through the Student Representative Assembly (SRA). A proposal has been put forth to move the Vice President elections away from the current system to an at large election. The format of this at large election is currently undefined and can take on many forms.
This is a constitutional referendum, which means it requires two thirds of the vote to pass. Abstentions will not be included in calculating the vote.
Are you in favour of changing the MSU Constitution to include an at large MSU Vice President Election?
Yes
No
Abstain
For more information, visit https://www.msumcmaster.ca/services-directory/31-elections-department/referendum-2016. Information on the “Yes” side campaign is available at http://www.vpref.ca/
Below, two Silhouette contributors examine the advantages and drawbacks of both positions.
The “Yes” side:
There are a number of problems with the current system. For one, while a respectable 42 percent of eligible students turned out to vote in the 2015 presidential election, most faculties saw turnouts below 30 percent in the SRA elections. This means that the people tasked with choosing vice-presidents are themselves only elected by a small minority of MSU members.
Furthermore, there’s little anonymity in a group as small at the SRA. If its members know Vice Presidential candidates personally, this will likely bias their vote and impede their ability to make a disinterested choice on behalf of all McMaster students.
Allowing the entire MSU membership to elect its Vice Presidents would solve both these problems. If voter turnout for vice presidential elections is close to that of our presidential elections, this would make VPs not only directly elected by McMaster students, but elected by a larger proportion of them than are represented in the SRA.
Additionally, vice presidential candidates would have to make their cases to the student body directly rather than behind closed doors to the SRA, increasing the transparency of the election and giving students a better idea of the platforms of student government hopefuls.
It seems odd to have people as powerful as the Vice Presidents elected by an intermediary group that only represents a small minority of eligible voters. Voting “yes” in the upcoming referendum will allow McMaster students to have a greater say in the decisions affecting them.
The “No” side:
Selecting a vice presidential team is no easy job. The election process for each Vice President is a long process. Every candidate is required to meet individually with each member of the SRA. This allows every SRA member to gain a deep understanding of each candidate’s platform, one that would be near impossible to achieve for every student at large. In fact, the job has become so difficult that last year’s meeting lasted 22 hours. A motion for all MSU members to be eligible to vote for VPs will be voted on in a referendum this coming election, but many believe it would not be the right decision.
An at-large vote would require VP candidates to campaign, which many report make VP positions less accessible to prospective candidates. Robyn Fishbein, a fourth year Sociology student, was a voting member of the VP Election Reform Ad-Hoc Committee last summer. “It’s not the VP’s job to be the face of the organization, and I think that makes a really big difference,” says Fishbein. Vice Presidents work mostly behind the scenes, while the MSU President and SRA members have inherently public roles. The highly public nature of the campaign creates a barrier to students who are ultimately interested in holding leadership roles that are less public than the President and SRA members.
The challenges of allowing all MSU members to vote also include student disengagement. The Ad-Hoc Committee report points out that at-large voters may be vulnerable to “voter fatigue,” which might contribute to a lower voter turnout. The VP elections would also require many names and positions on one ballot; with more names on a ballot, voters are more likely to vote at random. And, says Fishbein, “let’s face it, so many elections can get annoying.”
Although counterintuitive, many believe that the MSU democracy functions best without more opportunities to vote. Regardless of the result of the referendum, major restructuring will have to take place to prevent more inefficient, daylong meetings.
By: Esra Bengizi, Wes Kerfoot & Rina Muramatsu
Whether the Vice Presidents of the McMaster Students Union should be elected “at-large” is an item that will be on this year’s Presidential election ballot. Voting yes on the referendum gives us the opportunity to create positive change in their electoral system. In at-large elections students are given the opportunity to elect their vice presidents directly.
Under the current system, the Vice-Presidents are elected by the student representative assembly (SRA). The SRA consists of 35 members, who are themselves elected to represent student interests from each faculty at McMaster. The selection of VPs is unfair to individuals who are outsiders to the fairly insular groups involved in student government. Anyone in the SRA is allowed to run for VP positions, but the current culture of in-groups does not allow for this in practice. This can result in unfair appointments because of how students tend to conform to the opinions of their peers.
McMaster students pay $124 out of their tuition each year into the MSU, but have absolutely no say in the VP elections. The MSU is a multi-million dollar non-profit organization and students should have the opportunity to choose who their money is going to be managed by and spent on. They should be able to choose people who purportedly represent their interests. These VP positions are full-time jobs that are paid for with the students’ money, and this is no small portion of the budget, amounting to more than one hundred thousand dollars in total.
This current system is unsustainable and needs to change. VPs have previously been responsible for policies such as the HSR bus pass that required students to pay a fee of $130 to replace their lost passes. We can’t ignore the ramifications of their actions. Furthermore, VP elections take a considerable amount of time away from the SRA, with the most recent elections lasting over 22 hours. The VP election process itself is also heavily flawed, as it allows for members to ask questions of the candidates that require them to already possess detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the MSU. This is unfair to candidates who may possess all of the required skills, but do not know small details about how the MSU operates, which can easily be learned. This occurred frequently at the last election, and prevents regular students from running for VP positions. Since the SRA is made up of 35 students, this introduces another problem. While the SRA may genuinely want to do an unbiased job of electing their VPs, the simple fact that they mostly interact with each other in such a small group introduces a conformity bias. This bias is unavoidable and it means that they will only elect a certain type of candidate. Allowing the elections to be at-large would sidestep the problem of conformity.
VP elections take a considerable amount of time away from the SRA, with the most recent elections lasting over 22 hours.
The at-large system has been successful in numerous student unions across Canada. Currently, McMaster is only one of two schools in Ontario where students are unable to vote for their Vice President. We believe in fair student representation, and this is why you should vote YES to the VP At-Large Referendum because this is your voice and your choice.
Photo Credit: Yellow Hammer News
