The Rules of the Game

Fair Play in the Concordia Student Union Elections

NewsLaura Beeston — Published April 5, 2011

During a trip down the Hall building escalators to investigate a barrage of texts, tip-offs and gossip on March 31, The Link was met by two members of opposing Action and Your Concordia slates—one handing out student papers, the other in campaign colours.

Though the designated campaigning period had officially ended, there they stood, soliciting students to vote. But were they breaking electoral rules?

“Distributing a free press is something you can do at any time of year. It’s not campaigning,” said Your Concordia Arts and Sciences Councillor-elect Michaela Manson at the time. “[These newspapers] aren’t up for a fee levy.”

The same question was then turned to Rasim Hafiz, the Action hopeful running for VP Services & Sustainability, who was still wearing a blue t-shirt.

“Have you voted?” he asked. “It’s the last day. Tomorrow we’ll be speaking about everything, all our team, but today’s our last day, which is why we’re encouraging people to vote.”

From March 29 to 31, the CSU election campaign intensified daily as Concordia students took to the polls. As time wore on, the call for contestations and complaints about broken rules and fair play amplified, but the de facto rulebook—the CSU election standing regulations and bylaws—offered little direction in terms of how to address and enforce a proper system of campaign decorum.

As written by Chief Electoral Officer Oliver Cohen in the package, these regulations “provide clear guidelines for a fair and safe electoral process, but are by no means complete.”

Unsurprisingly, gripes from both sides about things like poster night decorum, “pre-” and “post-”
campaigning, and the use of promotional material were some of the many slights that arose on the 2011 electoral trail—as well as more serious charges of breaching procedures at polling stations, harassment and defamation.

Though the bylaws read that, “Candidates shall campaign in accordance with the rules of fair play,” this ambiguous imperative begs the question: what are the generally accepted community standards of a fair election at Concordia?




A Change in Directives
On March 30, the CEO issued both slates additional instructions regarding campaigning during the polling period, which is a violation under article 205 of the bylaws.

Though it states, “No campaign materials shall be within view of a polling station,” and, “that the secrecy of the vote is to be maintained,” allegations surfaced against the Action slate—that they continued to wear their campaign t-shirts and were soliciting votes in classrooms and near polling stations, sometimes keeping tallies on their t-shirts each time they got a student to the polling station.

In response, Cohen outlined that all candidates were not allowed to wear their campaign shirts during the polling days—regardless of whether or not they were inside out—and also limited the messages they were permitted to pass along to students as they canvassed them to vote.

“Candidates are only allowed to instruct students where they can vote. They may also say, ‘Go vote,’ but any other type of discussions concerning elections are forbidden,” he wrote.

“Sometimes the bylaws aren’t clear and people need clarification,” explained Cohen to The Link on Friday. “It was an issue that had to be dealt with.”

When Your Concordia’s president-elect Lex Gill approached Cohen with her concerns about Action’s “post campaigning,” the CEO allegedly told Gill that he had experienced difficulty both enforcing the bylaws and adequately responding to the rules being broken.

“There was a lot of, ‘I can’t tell anyone what to do,’ but he’s the only one who actually can tell people what to do,” she said. “So you see that there’s this willingness to just break the rules, which is ridiculous.

On June 1, the incoming president plans to get to the policy work she feels would “right a lot of the wrongs that [Your Concordia] experienced in this election,” and is not alone in her assertion that things need to change for the better.

“Overall, I think this election serves as a valuable lesson,” said Action presidential candidate Khalil Haddad.
“[Action] ran a clean and positive campaign from beginning to end, despite certain candidates, media outlets and ‘concerned students’ depicting us as violating electoral regulations, not being transparent and accusing us of highly unfounded allegations,” Haddad said. “We have not violated any electoral regulations throughout our campaign.

“I would highly encourage the CEO for more comprehensive and detailed electoral regulations in the future,” he wrote to The Link via email. “I think it’s easier to point fingers than to look for solutions on how we can make the electoral process into a more friendly environment.”

Changing, updating and expanding on the rules to make the election process fairer—and doing it when it’s still fresh in everyone’s mind—is something Gill hopes will make the election experience less about the contestations, and more about the campaign content of the hopeful union slates.

“Even changing the little things, like securing fair poster space for fee-levy groups, could make the whole process ­­better,” she said, adding that she hopes refined regulations will be put to a November referendum ballot.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 29, published April 5, 2011.