[Chad]

2008 DVD Referendum Results

After an all-nighter of counting and discussion over fines for each campaign, the elections committee has released the results of the referendum. Their summary has been posted on the elections committee's website can be found here: http://www.msumcmaster.ca/servicesan...lInfo/main.htm

The referendum which occurred on October 22 and 23 posed a question to students which asked if students would support an increase in student fees of $24 to support a DVD access service.

A full breakdown of the votes per faculty per day is posted on the elections committee's website. However, the totals are here:

Yes: DISQUALIFIED
No: 1673
Abstain: 104
Spoiled: 282
Total Ballots Cast: 2059

In any election or referendum, there are a set of rules and procedures set by the elections committee and MSU Bylaw 10 (http://www.msu.mcmaster.ca/cbp/2008_..._Elections.pd f). If these rules are breached, the elections committee is entitled to charge fines.

A campaign side can be declared disqualified if the number of fines against them surmounts a certain dollar value. It is the elections committee who receives complaints, discusses the validity of the complaint and attaches a dollar amount to each. The elections committee was unanimous in their decision to disqualify the "yes" campaign.

What exactly earned the "yes" sides their fines and ultimately, their disqualification will not be published until after the end of the appeal period.

Also, any campaign team with a fine has the option to submit an appeal within 5 days of their notification. They may also appeal the decision to the Electoral Appeal Board, whose decisions can overide those of the elections committee.

After the disqualification, all votes which supported the "yes" decision must be counted as an abstention. Therefore, one can infer that most of the ballots marked as abstained contain all of those ballots.

There was also an incident where all the ballots cast on the first day from the Engineers needed to be considered spoiled after a poll clerk was guilty of biasing some of the voters instead of remaining unbiased. The box containing the votes for that polling station is not changed throughout the day so there is no way to determine which votes would have been influenced by that poll clerk. Therefore, all were counted as spoiled.

A referendum must also reach quorum in order to be binding on the SRA. Quorum is 10% of MSU members, full time undergrads with 18 units or more, which amounts to 1930 votes. The yes vote would have succeeded in the referendum if it had reached quorum and had 50%+1.

For more macinsiders coverage on this topic, visit:
Discussion Forum: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=1989 5

An SRA Member's Opinion on the Referendum: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...9860#post 39860

Your MSU VP Finance's Opinion on the Referendum: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=1993 9

For more information about any of the material posted from the Elections Committee, you may contact Jon Schieding, the Chief Returning Officer, or Nick Shorten, the Deputy Returning Officer at [email protected] r.ca

Sorry but... WOO HOO!

Booooooooooyaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

w00t!

ahaha. silly girl telling me that the RSA was wrong and there was an opt-out option.

Dam, my "No" vote got spoiled :(

Oh well...at least it didn't pass. It would be interesting to see how many votes the yes side actually got though.

Well I think a large part of the abstentions are the YES votes since the disqualified votes become abstentions.

There was no option to abstain on this ballot; you could only pick yes or no. Thus ALL of the abstains were yeses. As for the spoiled votes...there could have been 282 yes for all we know.

You're right about the Abstention thing, Danny.

This means the no's got 85.4% originally.

The spoiled ballots are mostly a result of the one poll who's clerk was supposedly biasing the voters and not some sketchy scheme of the EC's to make this thing fail. They had to spoil the box just because of that.

I want to also once again thank the members of the elections committee.. not as some sort of suck up because I was a campaign member but because these people are all students like you or I and they've been putting in soooo many hours this week.

Next time you see one of them, thank them for volunteering with this service. They were up all last night getting you these results!

Wow, I think that super sucks about the poll clerk and ALL of the engineers who voted on the first day had their votes spoiled. Super. Suck. Mine was not counted then.

Next time, please hire honest people?
What if this had been close? I would have been (more) pissed.

Yea that does suck but I'm sure you understand why it was necessary.

Poll clerks go through training in which they're told not to say anything about the referendum. Even if people ask you what the question means, you're only supposed to tell them to read the ballot and that's it.

Originally Posted by lorend

...stupid girl telling me that the RSA was wrong and there was an opt-out option.

Hahahahahaha the RSA!! I would have been like, "Wow, these RSA guys sound like real a-holes... Do you think they're in cohoots with those SRA jerks?" LOL

Hey Chad and Danielle, just to correct 3 quick things:

The elections committee will be publishing all information about fines (including the minutes from our 15 hour meeting) online for students as soon as the appeal period is over. It was decided that transparency was necessary.

Majority is not 50 + 1%, rather 50% + 1 vote. So it just has to be 1 vote over the 50% mark, not 1%.

Although there was no option to abstain, voters wishing to abstain were told to submit their ballot blank into the ballot box, as such students were able to merely abstain.

Cheers,
John

Originally Posted by McIntyre

Hey Chad and Danielle, just to correct 3 quick things:

The elections committee will be publishing all information about fines (including the minutes from our 15 hour meeting) online for students as soon as the appeal period is over. It was decided that transparency was necessary.

Majority is not 50 + 1%, rather 50% + 1 vote. So it just has to be 1 vote over the 50% mark, not 1%.

Although there was no option to abstain, voters wishing to abstain were told to submit their ballot blank into the ballot box, as such students were able to merely abstain.

Cheers,
John

transparency is everyone's friend

except in clothing?