A Message From Your MSU President
Ryan Moran Discusses The MSU Election
Ryan Moran has given us his personal take on the events that happened during the MSU elections. You're the first to read it here. Note: It has not been edited by MacInsiders staff, and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of MacInsiders.
Before I start, I want to state that the purpose of this article is, on the one hand to satisfy questions that I know exist, but also to ensure that when next year’s President is finally confirmed, that person can assume the office with the dignity that the post deserves.
Objectively, this year’s MSU Presidential election looks like an absolute mess. With three counts and now an impending fourth, and with only one of those recounts (the third) having numbers truly reflective of the poll clerk’s ballot sheets. Additionally, there is now a disqualified candidate who, having the decision to disqualify overturned by the Electoral Appeal Board, will be officially back in the running. After everything, every action, every result, every word, that the past four weeks has endured, we are right back to the beginning again, square-one. This weekend the elections committee will be counting ballots again, and no, not in the form of a recount, but in the form of a new first count, as if the past four weeks never occurred. With everything else that has been going on in the past couple weeks, even I am trying to catch my breath and stop my head from spinning.
First off, I must defend the actions, decisions and work of the elections committee in these past four weeks. The positions of the Chief Returning Officer and the Deputy Returning Officer are two of the most difficult in the MSU. Scarcely a year has gone by in the past many in which the CRO has not resigned immediately after presidentials, if not for the sake of their academics, then for the sake of their own sanity. If nothing else, the job consumes you. Likewise, the elections committee is an incredibly difficult committee to fill. Recently I have heard much talk about the elections committee as though it’s some sort of institutionalized group of individuals consolidating power. Unfortunately, people who talk in this way don’t know that the EC is constantly in a state of flux, people are constantly being elected to it and resigning from it. Why is this? Well, simply, because it really sucks. You spend hours locked in rooms counting ballots, you hear the complaints of other individuals toward other individuals, you have to wade through it all and then try to pass fair judgment based on what are often petty claims. And then, after all that, you get nothing short of vilified for your trouble, whether it’s in the Sil or on a Facebook group.
The actions of the EC and the Returning Officer in the past couple weeks, has been essentially completely ordinary and logical. The only thing that has changed has been the time that it has taken to determine a winner, and there is a very good reason for that. Many people have asked why the EC did not do multiple counts in one night? The answer is simple, because logistically, it’s impossible. This is especially true in a year when you have one of the highest voting numbers in recent MSU history. Can you imagine how long it takes to count over 4200 ballots? And then redistribute them a couple times? If not, I can tell you that it’s easily upwards of 10 hours. Very few of us have 10 hours to spare in a week, never mind a period of 30 hours at a single time to devote to counting. Aside from the massively increased propensity for mistakes that it would entail (due to sheer exhaustion), we all have other priorities and things to do. Of course, the counter claim is that the elections committee members should make it their duty to always allot that time. To an extent I’d agree, if not for the fact that often those on the committee are only doing it because no one else will, and thus, have no more time to spare than anyone else. Essentially, the three counts that took place over the last couple weeks were exactly what would regularly take place in an old-fashioned night of counting. There was the first count, followed by an appeal for a recount, then a mistake in tabulation in this count was made blatantly obvious to the EC, so they themselves initiated the third recount to correct that error. They refined their count and ensured that the results were correct. And these results were indeed correct, as the third count had shown; Jerimi Jones was always the Preliminary winner. Yet, due to sheer impossibility, and respecting the fact that those on the EC are still students and have other priorities, there was no other way to do it than to do it over time.
What troubled this process and made it look like a mess was the fact that due to the time passing, the preliminary (and I stress preliminary in differentiation from “official”) results were constantly made public through the Sil. As you can imagine, if it were logistically possible to do three counts in one night, only one candidate would have ever been declared the winner (again, preliminary, an appeal period always follows a count). Of course, the Sil reporters were just doing their job, the trouble with this reporting came with the propensity for individuals reading the articles to spin yarns and conspiracy theories as to why the results had changed, instead of just waiting until the Sil reported on the “official” results. And with the addition of a Facebook group into the mess, one that spiraled into encouraging mistruths, paranoid theories, and conspiracies, you suddenly had a full-blown scandal on your hands. And it was one that was based in complete and utter inaccuracy and groundless, if not offensive, assertions.
To be perfectly honest, there was one thing that did change in this presidential election, and it wasn’t anything to do with the EC, nor with any conspiracies, nor with any thing to do directly with the MSU. It was the behaviour of many of the people involved, and not necessarily the candidates, though occasionally they’d be included, but largely with their supporters and followers. To be clear, the behaviour of so many people involved in this year’s race ranged from downright petty, to positively disgusting. This was shocking, especially when considering that the platforms of the campaigns involved ranged from boring, to staggeringly inadequate, ill prepared, or ill-informed. After the initial All-Candidates meeting, before the campaigns began, the former CRO, a fellow elections committee member, and myself could only stare at each other and comment in disbelief. We were shocked that the majority of questions we received about the rules were merely for the purpose of finding loopholes to break them. Either that or clarifying rules so that teams could be sure to vulture over the others, watching for mistakes so that they could be submitted as complaints and ideally (for them) approved as violations. Moreover, this is aside from the many inappropriate actions, particularly from one candidate’s team, already being brought to the EC’s attention well before the campaigns had even started. Though harshly competitive behaviour is not foreign to this process, an absolute disrespect for one another, contempt of the rules, and positively low, dirty, petty actions are unfortunately new. As someone who has seen this process many times, and has taken part in the process personally, I was shocked at lack of dignity, ethics and respect that seemed to be developing in the race this year. And though not all candidates, or their supporters showed this prior to or during the race, no one involved in the race has been absolutely exempt from it since it ended. Well, except for maybe Dugdale.
A good amount of why this process has now been dragged out for so long, and especially dragged through the mud, has precisely to do with this sort of awful behaviour of those vying for the office, or at least that of their supporters, who they are ultimately responsible for. And now, the process is going to be dragged out longer and with yet again different results. As well, as a smaller EC, due to the resignations of people who simply can’t stand this anymore. And to be clear again, I have nothing against Joel, if I have anything for him its the utmost sympathy for his former disqualification, scarcely any of what he was disqualified for was his fault. Joel simply surrounded himself with some very reckless, and at times, thoughtless people. People that took on so many actions and deeds that, especially in some cases, rocked the integrity of this electoral process, if not human dignity, to its core. Being that these actions were in Joel’s name as the candidate, he was ultimately responsible for them, hence his disqualification. And now that decision has been over turned by the Electoral Appeal Board. This is an independent third party body that took two hours to investigate and rule on a decision that took 13 hours, discussions with judicial affairs, meetings with the Ombuds office, and calls to security services, for the elections committee to make. The stakes of student government may seem small to a professor or to a University official, but for the love of anything, I recommend that next time the EAB is appealed to for a ruling, that a couple of its members at least take a bit more time to deliberate on what’s being presented, and approach witnesses or consider the circumstances to a greater depth before making a decision. As for Joel, I welcome him back into the race, and only caution both him and the students of McMaster to consider what it says about someone’s leadership skills, when their own campaign team gets them disqualified.
If this whole mess has anything that it shouldn’t be reflecting on, it is ironically, the MSU and any student’s involvement in it. Anyone who has been MSU President, or even any student who has been around and involved for a while, can attest to the fact that a year without some measure of controversy, whether valid or not, is virtually unheard of. Sometimes such circumstances may be valid, when this is the case, it is usually due to some violation of policy, or something occurring out of step with regular processes or practices. Everything that has occurred with the election of next year’s McMaster Student Union President has thus far, been precisely according to process and policy. However, there are number of people, even involved with candidates campaign teams, or the candidates themselves, who have taken it upon themselves to spread misinformation and untruths. This is an act that they undertake solely on their own accord and is reflective only of their dishonesty and lack of dignity.
A couple weeks back, I saw a note on Facebook that was posted after the second count, the author (rightfully) questioned the results. In the comments section, one of the part-time managers of the MSU was shocked by what the note detailed, and stated that she was embarrassed to be a part of the MSU. I would personally like to reassure her that she should not feel this way. The ballot number discrepancy was something that the elections committee itself identified as a mistake in tabulation and immediately moved to hold a recount to correct the results, undertaking the proper course of action. That action, like the overall conduct of the elections committee has been everything to the electoral integrity that they uphold. They have done their job and they have done their job right, especially under the pressures of a tough situation and petty people. Moreover, this part-time manager herself has this year done and continues to do, an amazing job in her position, and everyone can see this first hand on the evening of Monday March 24th, when her job culminates with the holding of the Teaching Awards event. The MSU is only as strong as the people involved, and this year especially the MSU has had some very strong people involved who have done amazing things and have nothing to be embarrassed about.
The MSU is not just the President. Many feel that an organization is its leadership, and as I come towards the end of my term, I am proud to say that this is not true. Both myself in this position, and the MSU as a whole, is nothing without the people that make it up, those who run its services and those who represent its students. The MSU is the pages you are reading, both The Silhouette and all its many contributors. The MSU is the posters that get maintained on bulletin boards all around campus, or which you print from MSU Underground Media and Design. The MSU is any club that you may be apart of. The MSU is the Student Walk Home Attendant Team, and the Student Health Education Centre. The MSU is the Union Market, Quarters, Short Stop and Undercovers. The MSU is the Emergency First Response Team, the Maroons, MacGreen and Revolution Wear, as well as the Fundraising Initiative Team. The MSU is well over 300 part-time student staff and hundreds more student volunteers, who on a daily basis, dedicate their time to ensuring that their fellow students have the most fun, safe and successful post-secondary experience possible. The President’s position is merely a single drop in a bucket, and one that would be useless if it were not for all the other hundreds of drops that work to make an absolute waterfall of student involvement, service and success. And, moreover, that make this campus wonderful.
GENERAL DISCUSSION REGARDING THE MSU ELECTION CAN BE DONE IN OUR MACINSIDERS FORUM THREAD HERE. CLICK HERE TO POST YOUR THOUGHTS! OR, IF YOU HAVE A COMMENT DIRECTLY TOWARDS RYAN'S ARTICLE, CLICK HERE TO ADD A COMMENT.
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