CRO says margin of error “less than one per cent”
Tamara Khandaker
Staff Writer
@anima_tk
The elections are over and the incumbent party has won by a clean sweep. But members of the challenging party have alleged that there are a number of flaws in the election process.
Mandy Yang, who ran for director of Schulich with the slate Free York University (FYU), approached Excalibur with concerns regarding the way polls were run, and a number of students have backed up her claims.
Yang says that there was potential for double voting, and that there were instances in which students were given fewer ballots than there were slots.
Vivian Chen says she initially voted for Yang, who is a friend of hers. A few days later, she was stopped by a York United candidate in Central Square who asked her if she would vote. Chen says she informed the candidate that she had voted for Yang already, but the candidate said she didn’t know who Yang was and insisted that Chen vote for her. Chen asked if she could vote for just one slot, and the poll clerks allowed it. She was not asked if she had already voted.
“I feel like there was a lack of administration. It didn’t happen properly,” she says.
When Chen told Yang that she voted twice, Yang thought she would see for herself if this was possible. After removing her campaign gear, she went to a poll in the Lassonde Building to vote for a second time.
Unlike her friend, she was asked whether or not she had already voted. Yang said no, and the poll clerk allowed her to proceed.
However, the election’s chief returning officer (CRO), Cécile Des Vignes, says it is extremely unlikely that any individual was able to vote twice or receive only one ballot.
“The margin of error was less than one per cent,” Des Vignes said in an email. “This could not have had any impact on the outcome of the elections.”
However, students Yuanyou Ma and Stefan Gatti-Cavanagh both say that they had difficulty voting for their own colleges. Ma was not given a ballot for her college, Calumet, and Gatti-Cavanagh had to go to a second polling station to be able to vote for his college, Vanier.
“They didn’t seem prepared very well,” says Gatti-Cavanagh, “I’m not sure if they were scamming everyone, I’m not sure what to feel.”
Hamid Osman, the YFS executive director, says that it is almost impossible for this to happen. He explains that the only confusion that arises when it comes to voting is when a student has a common name. But in these cases, the ballots are put into an envelope, and later cross-checked against their information.
Another student, Sangeung Jung, is also confused as to whether or not her vote was counted. She says the poll clerk could not find her name in the database, and she was given two envelopes to hold her ballots. This is done when someone has a common name, but on York University’s database, she is the only Sangeung Jung.
Regardless, Osman expressed confusion as to why Yang did not approach Des Vignes when she ran into these problems.
“I don’t understand why she would go to Excalibur first before coming to file a complaint with the CRO,” says Osman, who confirmed that Yang had not filed any formal complaints with Des Vignes. “If there were any issues, the CRO would have caught onto it,” he says. “It’s interesting that no one else from her team contested this.”
However, Yang is not the only person on the FYU slate who believes the process is flawed. Jonathan Jupiter, FYU president, says that he has noticed many problems which may deter students from running against the incumbent party in the future.
“At the end of the day, anyone campaigning deserves a fair election,” he says.
He does not think students were made aware of the fact that elections were happening, let alone taught how to vote correctly.
“A spoiled vote means that someone who doesn’t understand how to complete a ballot has voted, someone who was not educated about the process,” he says.
“People put up banners for Nas, for Frost Week, and Welcome Week. Why aren’t we promoting elections?” he asks. “Why can’t there be a display board of all candidates? Students aren’t aware enough.”
Jupiter also says that a lack of resources made campaigning considerably more difficult for FYU.
Nevertheless, Jupiter says he congratulates York United for their successful campaign.
“York United worked hard and did a great job, and I don’t want to take anything away from them. But I do want to improve on elections,” he says. “Why should we run when we don’t have a chance? That’s the message they’re sending out.”
With files from Leslie Armstrong and Yuni Kim
