Scandal taints upcoming UWSA elections
By Nick Olynyk, Natasha Marar
News Reporter, News Editor
March 12, 2008
 · Electoral Monitoring Committee resigns after claims of electoral infractions fall on deaf ears
· Last minute emergency council meetings held to save face and elections
· Ejected councillor rebukes, "Fuck democracy. This is the UWSA."
Three members of the UWSA’s Electoral Monitoring Committee (EMC) resigned Friday afternoon after a week of turbulent affairs that resulted in the election of a new EMC.
The resigned include Viva Dadwal, Raed Kadri, and Andrew Langille who cite eight areas of misdirection with the UWSA elections, raising alarm over by-laws and policies that were not followed.
The UWSA-appointed EMC as comprised of three council members Dadwal, Kadri, and Whitney Manfro, one student at large, Langille, and the chief returning officer (CRO), Justin Teeuwen, who is in charge of running UWSA elections. The EMC monitors the election process to make sure things run smoothly and according to the by-laws, but hold no voting power to change procedures.
The EMC was disappointed over the CRO’s lack of communication. Teeuwen’s first meeting with the committee came March 3, over a week after election campaigns were underway.
“The EMC is a standing committee, so that means it starts in September, and that is one of our [concerns]. If we just got elected three or four weeks ago, we weren’t [active] throughout the whole thing,” said Dadwal. “Before [the election] began, the policies were already being violated.”
“We met with the EMC on Monday [Mar. 3], and then the EMC decided to refer all the problems to council because it was out of our jurisdiction, and we wanted a little more insight on what to do,” said Teeuwen.
Council also met last Thursday to discuss the problems the EMC had with how the election was being run. “The meeting never got anywhere last time because the notice wasn’t waived,” said council chair, Yoni Rozenszain in reference to the emergency meeting.
The lack of resolution to the concerns expressed by the EMC led to their resignation on Friday afternoon.
“There is no point sitting on a committee which is supposed to make sure every is running smoothly, when all these bylaws and policies are being broken,” said Dadwal.
Teeuwen says he is “a bit surprised by the committee’s resignation,” but wishes he would have contacted them sooner, adding that he feels there was not an urgent need to have a meeting until up to that point.
During another abrupt meeting this Monday, a new EMC was formed after charges from law representative, Ken Birchall, that the new members were should not have been nominated and elected via e-mailed motions.
“They were improperly elected in an illegal procedure,” said Birchall, who claimed that their online nomination and election violated the rules that mandate for quorum and chaired meetings.
Vice president administration, Marla Cronin, argued that, “This was not an online meeting and, therefore, did not need a chair.”
Because the elections cannot continue without an EMC, it was necessary that they be properly elected during Monday’s meeting. The new committee consists of human kinetics representative Jennifer Durocher, senator Craig Campagna, law student Jeff LaPorte, and Danielle McLaughlin.
One complaint the original EMC had was with the UWSA’s online voting being advertised, despite the method not yet being authorized for use by council. On top of that, the UWSA website has incorrectly advertised the voting dates, said the committee.
“There are some minor areas within the by-laws that refer to ballot boxes and things, and we need to make sure that those are fulfilled. But I think I was doing what was expected of me with the online voting,” said Teeuwen, who says the system is more accurate than ballot box voting.
During Monday’s meeting, Teeuwen defended his decision to implement online elections. He stated that online voting is more convenient, and that “Because the system is more accessible...it is more democratic and fair.”
Teeuwen also believes that online voting provides greater security by allowing administrators to catch fraudulent voters based on their IP address. “The University of Windsor’s IT Services is phenomenal. The university system is hard to hack. The server they are using [for online voting] is the same they are using for Webmail which is the most secure that we have.”
Both Birchall and Dadwal, however, stated that UWSA election policies refer to the use of a ballot which, according to some definitions, implies the use of paper to vote.
With merely a day left before elections, and due to the impracticality of having to print ballots, assemble more poll clerks, mail out ballots to off-campus students, and readvertise the use of paper instead of online voting, council passed a motion to allow online voting.
Teeuwen responded to previous claims regarding his violation of policy for the provision of this voting procedure. “There is no policy that has been presented [to use online voting],” said Teeuwen, who believes online voting is not a policy but a method of voting.
“All year we have been talking about he problems of the policies,” said Birchall, who was subsequently asked to leave the meeting. “This is a joke. Fuck democracy, this is the UWSA.”
Motions were passed by council to implement online voting with the provision that two paper ballot voting stations also be set up: one in the CAW Student Centre, and one in the law building.
First-year representative, Colin Baldner, was in favour of the motion. “The spirit of the UWSA... would be better represented if we went with the online rather than the paper [voting]...so I think that takes precedence over what may or may not have been broken [through policies].”
“I fully understand that our policies do not adequately reflect this system. Right now we need to put that aside,” said Cronin, who wants to leave it to the future council to institute online voting policies.
Speaking on behalf of the new EMC, LaPorte said, “It was in [the EMC’s] opinion...that this election needs to move forward in the most student-friendly democratic way.” Indeed, general elections are scheduled to proceed as planned.
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