YFS elections changes disputed

Yuni Kim
Assistant News Editor
After this year’s YFS student union elections and nearly two months after York University released its election process review, the union is being criticized for failing to adopt important recommendations.
York’s audit of the York Federation of Students (YFS) elections process, conducted by York’s ombudsperson John McCamus, was released Sept. 16. The YFS also released an election audit Aug. 24 through Davis LLP, a third-party law firm. Both reports offered several recommendations that would increase impartiality and transparency in student elections put in the YFS elections proccess.
York’s vice-president students Rob Tiffin expressed his disappointment of what he feels is a lack of substantial changes.
“Based on what I’ve seen, they have not addressed the issues that were within the [elections review] reports, specifically in the key areas that we were most interested in,” said Tiffin. “The selection and clarification of the responsibilities of the Chief Returning Officer (CRO), clarification of what constitutes election material […] these were some of the key areas which we’ve been interested in.”
According to YFS executive director Jeremy Salter, 15 out of 22 suggestions from the McCamus report were implemented, as well as 27 out of 28 from the Davis report.
Tiffin emphasized the importance of the changes being actively put into motion before next year’s elections take place.
“I just want to emphasize that these changes have to occur before any election is run,” he said. “Those recommendations must be present before another election. I’m just disappointed from what I’ve seen so far.”
“Some of the recommendations we have implemented fully,” said Salter. “Some of them were applied partially and some of them, we believe, are not in the best interest of the YFS.”
However, Greg Kay, Schulich School of Business director of the YFS, said “[the YFS] are flat-out lying to students about implementing the recommendations. They are pretending they are implementing them. Almost none of the recommendations have been applied.”
“[The YFS] is counting on the apathy of an average student,” he added.
Salter noted that he found Kay’s approach to this situation to be “offensive” and added that “it is completely unreasonable to say that [the YFS] are lying.”
“I can’t imagine what type of reasoning Kay has to make such defamatory statements about the YFS,” he said. “I challenge Mr. Kay to come forward and [point out] where we’ve actually told lies.”
Kay explained that a recommendation to hold a referendum to consider online voting as an option has not been put into action.
“[YFS] promised to have a referendum [in 2007] to decide whether we’d use ballots or online elections,” Kay said. “There was a recommendation that if [the YFS] doesn’t go by e-vote that [the YFS] at least hold a referendum. [The YFS] is not doing that.”
Salter admitted there will not be a referendum on this issue, and explained there was good reason to dismiss online voting as an option.
“[Online voting] is not secure, for one. When you have polling stations, you’re able to maintain the sanctity of the ballot. With online voting, it turns almost every computer into a polling station.”
Salter also brought up the issue of the possibility of electronic hacking.
“The University of Ottawa and the University of British Columbia’s alma mater society […] their [online] elections were thrown out due to tampering,” he said. “There are a lot of security issues. The allegations are baseless, frivolous in nature. We never had a situation where our box has been tampered with.”
Kay remains adamant however that ballot voting brings far more harm than good.
“Over the years there’s been countless issues with ballot voting,” said Kay. “The one year they did have online voting, there was no controversy and the actual incumbents lost. I think that’s indicative of why they don’t want online elections.”
Though he recognized that the election campaign reimbursement recommendation was in fact, fully implemented, Kay also criticized the fact that the decreased number of posters permitted during campaigning actually discourages newcomers from campaigning against experienced incumbents.
The number of posters allowed on campus is limited to 100 for a director candidate and 400 by an executive candidate.
“Campaigners won’t have to pay out of their own pockets anymore [because] the YFS will reimburse it,” he said. “But that makes it more difficult for new incumbents to come into power. [The YFS] plaster their faces all over campus on posters […] they basically ‘campaign’ all year.”
Salter said that the move to have a smaller number of posters was a move to reduce the amount of paper wasted.
“YFS has a sustainability policy and we are always making sure that our environmental footprint is reduced as much as possible,” he explained.
Salter said one of the recommendations they took into account was reimbursement of campaign expenses for all the candidates.
“If you want to run for the YFS but you come from a marginalized community, we are going to make it accessible for you to run so you don’t have to make a decision of whether to purchase textbooks for the semester or run for the YFS,” he said.
Another recommendation from both reports being implemented is altering the hiring process of the Chief Returning Officer (CRO).
During last year’s YFS elections, the CRO was hired because, according to Salter, “[Casey Chu Cheong] was the most qualified candidate for the position.” The position was never advertised, according to Salter.
If York’s recommendation is approved, however, the CRO’s position is going to be advertised around campus and the Elections Committee will narrow the pool of candidates to three and present them to the YFS Board of Directors. The CRO will then be selected by a secret ballot vote.