The Acadia Students Union (ASU) closed voting in the general election at 4:30pm ADT on March 3rd, 2022. The final results for the election were sent out to students by Chief Returning Officer Athieera Patil:
Following the election results, as outlined in the email to students, presidential candidate Tanvi Dabas appealed her disqualification to the Elections Committee. This committee is in charge of upholding election policy and procedures. The disqualification decision was upheld by the committee, although the details of the offense were withheld from the general public to protect the privacy of those involved.
The decision of the Elections Committee was then appealed to the Students Representative Council (SRC). The SRC voted in a meeting on Tuesday, March 8th to commission governance expert Paula Minnikin to select and propose impartial members of the Acadia community to sit on an appeals committee. This committee would then be reviewed, approved, and commissioned by the SRC. If the committee is commissioned it will review the evidence regarding any appeal or complaint about the election results and render binding decisions on the outcome of the election based on this evidence. The committee could potentially also call for a rerun of certain positions if they felt that the events surrounding the election prevented the rendering of a fair result.
Aside from the results of the presidential election the committee will likely also call for a rerun of the faculty-specific senator positions. This would be founded on the basis of a technical error in the voting system that allowed students not from a specific faculty to vote for its senator. It should be noted that this error does not in any way compromise the security or validity of the votes or any of the other races.
There were also concerns raised at the meeting last Tuesday regarding some students not feeling heard at SRC. These students were reminded that all SRC members hold office hours and are open to consultation. Other suggestions as to how to remedy these concerns were noted and will likely be discussed further at the upcoming SRC meeting on Tuesday, March 15th, along with the appointments for the appeals committee. SRC meetings are open to observation from the public, but the public is only allowed to participate at the behest of the chair or a majority vote from the council.
We will keep you updated on any new developments surrounding the election results. If you have any questions, concerns, or information feel free to reach out to ASU President Georgia Saleski ([email protected]), Athenaeum Editor-in-Chief Axel Eschholz ([email protected]), or any member of SRC.
