University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) presidential candidate Robert Johannson has breached pre-campaign election rules, according to a ruling by the chief returning officer (CRO) Jodie Smith.
On Feb. 12, the Johannson campaign made a post to a community bulletin board on Discord requesting nomination signatures — just hours before the nomination period closed. The post was ruled to have breached pre-campaigning election rules, defined as using resources outside of the campaign period (Feb. 24 to March 5) to solicit votes for a candidate.
Students seeking candidacy for a UMSU executive position are required to obtain identifying information of at least 100 nominators who are students of the union.
According to election rules, as part of pre-campaigning, it is prohibited to openly express a specific intention to run or register as a candidate or side through a public forum. It is also prohibited to communicate to groups of more than five members of the union about a candidate’s candidacy from the beginning of the nomination period — both clauses that Johannson was ruled to have breached.
Johannson received a 10-demerit penalty as a result of the violation. The UMSU Election Manual dictates that the CRO will assign demerits to a candidate that has violated election rules, with a candidate being disqualified from the race if they obtain 50 demerits.
Johannson was previously given a warning for the same offence on Feb. 8 after making a Reddit post, according to a warning email sent by Smith.
The post made to the U of M subreddit read, in part, “I hate asking for this, but 100 signatures is hard to get while remaining within the bizarre and arcane rules UMSU imposes.”
Smith told Johannson in the warning email that the message is not allowed and that “the solicitating for signatures needs to be specifically targeted […] you cannot generally post publicly.”
She added, “I would caution you about commenting negatively about UMSU and the process in general. You are running to work for, and lead, this organization for the next year. Part of being a candidate, is demonstrating the leadership qualities required for this executive position.”
In a statement to the Manitoban on March 1, Johannson said the warning from the CRO led him to believe that posting to a Discord server would be acceptable, “since it’s not exactly a public space.”
“The first thing I’d like to stress is just how vague and difficult to interpret the actual rules around UMSU elections are as a candidate,” he added. “I had assumed that the rule against pre-campaigning only applied to actual campaigning for a campaign before the authorized time, rather than simply seeking nominations.”
In both the Reddit and Discord post, his campaign mentioned that he could not share further details as that would be against the pre-campaigning rules.
“As of now I recently submitted an appeal on the basis of a miscommunication of the rules by the CRO,” he stated.
Johannson is the first of the 34 candidates running in the 2025 UMSU general election to receive demerits for violating election rules.
