How long will it take to count? ( I realize the polls just closed, I'm just looking for when we should expect the results? Tomorrow, Next Friday? 2 weeks from now?)

They're just starting the fines meeting now and that should be pretty intense. Counting starts soon afterwards. I believe the results are supposed to be posted within 24 hours after the close of polls.

Originally Posted by temara.brown

They're just starting the fines meeting now and that should be pretty intense. Counting starts soon afterwards. I believe the results are supposed to be posted within 24 hours after the close of polls.

could you explain what a fines meeting is?

Originally Posted by stevennevets

could you explain what a fines meeting is?

The EC gets together and adds up all the infractions in dollar amounts and I guess bills the parties involved (or takes it from their deposit if there is one. I'm pretty sure there's always a deposit).

That's only my guess tho, could be more involved.

Following the close of polls, the MSU Election Committee (which administers MSU elections and referenda) meets to review complaints submitted in relation to the conduct of sides. Under the MSU's election bylaw, the committee is empowered to assess penalties for violations of election/referendum rules, including fines (hence the notion of a "fines meeting"). Once this portion of the meeting addressing rule violations is over, the committee members and official side scrutineers will count the ballots --- unless a minimum of 10% of the MSU membership didn't vote, in which case the ballots are destroyed without being counted. A minimum of 10% of the membership must vote (quorum) for the referendum outcome to be binding on the SRA.

Looking forward to hearing the results!!!!!

Be sure to let us know on MacInsiders first hehe

I can't find any results posted on the EC website yet...

I should also mention that if either side has enough fines against them, their campaign side can be disqualified.
So, if either team ran their campaign rather spuriously, they will get disqualified (determined in the fines meeting). From then I believe the procedure is to take all of the votes for that side and count them as abstentions.

I was expecting results to be up a lot quicker. I guess we just have to wait...

I just went up to the MSU office and the EC is still in there. The receptionist on duty says she believes they never even went home for the evening.

There are really big decisions to make about all of this. I can guarentee you that the fines aspect of the whole thing would have taken an extreme amount of time after seeing what all went on... plus the job of counting all of the ballots.

Apparently they didn't start counting the ballots until 6am this morning!

Check the Elections website around 4:30 for the results

Originally Posted by temara.brown

I just went up to the MSU office and the EC is still in there. The receptionist on duty says she believes they never even went home for the evening

When I came in at 9:30 this morning it was clear none of them had slept.

the results are up!

https://www.msumcmaster.ca/news/msuNews.htm

NO won, with 1673 votes!!! The YES side was disqualified for violations of the rules.

also, that was dangerously close to not achieving quorum... less than 100 extra votes.

is there any way to find out what the violations were that caused YES to be disqualified?

and are the abstain votes now the total including the ones that were taken from the votes for the yes side?

WHOA why are all the engineering ballots spoiled on the first day?

Also, I would like to know how many votes were cast for the yes side. Too bad we can't find out.

Alright so after looking more into it, there was a biased clerk.

To the clerk: You idiot, you spoiled my ballot!

I'm currently writing up an explanation on what the results all mean and it will be posted on the main page asap!

But for your questions, DannyV, you're right. The engineering results were all spoiled as a result of the actions of the poll clerk.

As for finding out why the 'yes' campaign was disqualified, it's because.. essentially they broke a lot of rules. It was a unanimous decision by the elections committee to disqualfiy them. As for what exactly they did, all that is in closed session. The campaign team knows of the infractions against them and it is up to them if they want to release them.

Now to those who might have heard the message that the SRA was running a dirty campaign, you can now safely accept it as a completely false. We were not the ones who were disqualified nor were close for that matter.

I'm guessing the clerks at JHE changed during the day, because when I was there in the morning they just handed me the ballot and instructed me how to give it back to them so it can be signed.