By-Election bonanza coming to an end

by Michael Oliver

The fate of five members of the VUWSA Executive whose election is the subject of an investigation will know whether they’ll keep their jobs this Friday.
The VUWSA Election Arbitration Panel is expected to deliver its judgement to the Election Committee on three points of contention raised regarding the way the July by-election was held.

The panel is made up of former NZUSA Co President Joseph Randall, former VUWSA Treasurer Graeme Edgeler, and Senior Lecturer in Statistics Dr Richard Arnold.
Points the panel will consider over the week will be whether the electronic ballot paper complied with VUWSA’s constitution, that there were two different ballot papers used during the election, and that adequate security measures, to prevent fraudulent voting, were not used when obtaining votes on paper in the quad.

Difficulties could arise if the panel should rule the by election invalid, and the five newly elected exec members finding their voting powers retracted.
In its written submission, the collective of students contesting the by-elecetion’s legitimacy, headed by ACT on Campus Vice-President Peter McCaffrey, highlighted their concerns and criticised returning officer Mark Maguire’s response to their complaint.

“We believe that firstly, it is unacceptable for the returning officer to have taken so long to reply to our complaints, and secondly, that the returning officer did not provide adequate responses to any of our complaints,” the submission stated.

Nominations for the 2010 VUWSA Exec closed last Thursday.

http://www.salient.org.nz/news/by-election-bonanza-coming-to-an-end
This story was syndicated by the Aotearoa Student Press Association via Salient www.salient.org.nz

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