MAJOR CHANGES IN UMSU ELECTION POLICY

Five elected VPs and other new rules for upcoming general election

TESSA VANDERHART STAFF Electoral reforms swept the last UMSU council meeting of 2005, with three major changes to elections policy voted unanimously into effect for the upcoming general election. The UMSU policy and bylaws committee developed a set of recommendations over the past term to increase the accountability and openness of UMSU elections. According to proponents of the new system, president Amanda Aziz and Paul Taylor, the chair of the policy committee, the changes should solve recurring problems in UMSU elections. Most importantly, the entire UMSU executive will now be elected. In previous years, only the president and vice-president were elected. Also, the three director positions that were hired in the 04/05 year are being converted into vice-presidencies, much like the executive structure at other student unions that are members of the CFS, such as the University of Winnipeg. The new positions are easily transferable to the current ones, except for the new vice president (external), which is similar to the director of public relations position, discontinued for the 04/05 year, according to Aziz. UMSU council policy chair Paul Taylor said that the changes will not only benefit student politicians, but also students.

Rather than the traditional president and vice-president slates, the next election will see only non-official slates. That is, students will vote for each of the five executive positions separately, regardless of the slate a candidate belongs to. Also, individuals running for any of the five executive positions have the option of campaigning together, but are not required to do so. Slates cannot use slate-only posters, however, a team name or affiliated candidates can be mentioned on each candidate’s campaign materials. The new non-official slates will accrue no financial benefit to those who team up, according to Taylor, but rather will allow students to put team names on posters — thus increasing the visibility of the election, without increasing the cost to participants in terms of time, money, or posters. “The idea is that you can’t share materials, but you can share the goodwill that those materials generate,” said Taylor.

He also said that one important outcome of the dissolution of official slates and increased number of elected positions will have is to increase the visibility of the general election, and get more students interested and involved in student politics. “The main concern that we’re coming from is the fact that students aren’t especially involved on this campus,” said Taylor. He noted that in recent elections, voter turnout in the range of 9 to 13 per cent has demonstrated that students need more of an incentive to get interested. UMSU president Amanda Aziz noted that the increase in accountability might lead to higher voter turnout.

“With more candidates running, certainly people have more friends and more connections,” said Aziz. “The idea is just that people can run together, but everyone is elected individually,” she added.

Taylor said this means that “currently, more than half of the executive isn’t directly accountable to students; we’d like to make them directly accountable to the people who are paying their salaries.” Aziz added that, compared to the universities on which the new electoral policies are based, UMSU traditionally has very intense elections — which may discourage students from entering the fray. “When you look across the country, we’re very odd,” she said. With the changes, she added, candidates need not have an extensive knowledge of UMSU politics to get involved.

Aziz is especially confident that the changes to postering policy — each candidate gets 400 posters, in addition to one poster at each postering spot designated by the Chief Returning Officer — will diminish the need for candidates to devote an entire month to the campaign. Taylor added that by reducing the length of time between the nomination period — often used for ‘pre-campaigning’ — and the election, the amount of time candidates put into elections will further be reduced. However, the campaign period is actually increasing from 11 to 12 days, as the campaign period will be extended to include the three days of voting. The director of programming position, rather than becoming an elected executive position, will now be hired, possibly on a long-term basis. Aziz noted in the council meeting that this is the way it is done at many other universities, as the programming position requires a good deal of very specific skills and experience. The addition of this position will leave the number of UMSU staff the same as this academic year, as the executive policy and research director position was discontinued in policy changes earlier this fall.

Changes at a glance

1. There will be five directly elected executive positions, instead of two. President VP (Advocacy) — much like current vice-president VP (Student Services) — much like director of student affairs VP (Internal) — much like director of internal administration VP (External) — in charge of communications

2. Staff programmer Johnny Einarson is currently the UMSU-appointed director of programming. Now, the position will be hired, and potentially long-term.

3. Election policy changes - all positions to be individually elected; no more forced president and vice-president slates. - all slates will be non-official, and there will be no financial benefit to campaigning as a slate. - changes to postering policy: limits enforced, and designated postering areas - campaigning increased to 12 days, including campaigning during voting period