ASFA Resolved
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The results of last week’s Arts and Science Federation of Associations byelections will stand, as former ASFA Chief Electoral Officer Nick Cuillerier promised a special meeting of the ASFA council to withdraw a complaint he had made to the faculty association’s Judicial Committee.
Cuillerier had filed a complaint after noticing irregularities in how the byelection was conducted by his successor, Marvin Cidamon. Prior to the meeting, Cidamon, who was not in attendance, had submitted his letter of resignation.
Council voted on a series of motions recognizing that the election had been mismanaged, but that will allow the winners to take up their seats on the ASFA executive and council once a recount of the votes has been completed. In an e-mail on Oct. 21, the Judicial Committee confirmed that the recount had taken place and the election results would stand.
“I do feel that the measures implemented in this motion satisfy most of my concerns,” said Cuillerier after the meeting. “I don’t feel the candidates themselves should be penalized, and I don’t feel the ASFA students should be on the hook to pay several thousand dollars more for another byelection they had no part in failing.”
The meeting began with Cuillerier reading a list of the potential bylaw violations he had noticed throughout the campaign, which included allegations that students may have been able to vote multiple times and that several polling clerks and ballot counters were ineligible to hold those posts.
Last week, Cidamon acknowledged to The Link that he knew he was violating bylaws by hiring former ASFA VP Internal Nicole Devlin. Nevertheless, he said, “Time was against me and I had other choices, but she seemed like someone who knew her stuff, and knew how to deal with an election.”
One of the motions voted on enables ASFA’s Finance Committee to take Cidamon’s performance into consideration when deciding what kind of compensation he will receive for his services.
Cuillerier expressed no ill will towards his successor, despite what he felt was an inadequate job overseeing the elections, saying that sometimes “good people don’t make good leaders.”
While Cuillerier had withdrawn his complaint, the Judicial Committee must still meet to give an opinion on matters brought before it jointly by Cidamon and ASFA VP Internal Schubert Laforest.
However, the JC is currently unable to meet the minimum quorum of three members, after one member resigned due to a conflict of interest resulting from mistakenly volunteering to count ballots on election night.
“We’re in the middle of a deliberation of it, but we do need to find at least one additional member of JC,” said one of its members, Justin Famili.
“It’s up to council to fill vacancies on the Judicial Committee. According to bylaws they have to do it by a special council meeting at the earliest convenience. My assumption right now is that would be next week.”
Laforest told The Link that efforts are underway to find a replacement for Cidamon, and that ASFA is looking for “someone as enthusiastic as Nick for being by-the-book. Someone who is really going to adopt not just the spirit of the bylaws, but follow them to a T.”
It was also confirmed at the meeting that council and the executive have access to an updated set of ASFA bylaws. Cuillerier, who had overseen reforms to the bylaws regarding elections last year, had accused members of ASFA of consulting an outdated version.
However, while the downloadable version on the ASFA website was indeed out of date, Laforest said that members of the faculty association had looked into the matter and determined they had the correct version at their disposal.
