BOD Election Report 2017
Board of Directors Election Report 2017
Executive Summary
The SAIT Students’ Association (SAITSA) mission is “[a] community where students are inspired to learn, lead, and be exceptional” and this was the inspiration for the 2017 Board of Director elections. This year the election process was followed and all candidates’ participation was commendable. However, the election faced significant challenges with the distribution of voting emails to the student body, which resulted in voter confusion as well as lower voter turnout.
SAITSA recognizes the need to hold open and fair elections for positions on the Board of Directors (BOD).This report highlights recommendations and concerns with regards to SAITSA’s election processes, election promotion, and revisions to current policy and procedure documents and voting issues.These issues and recommendations relate to the candidate meetings, management of campaigns and campaign period, voting, expenses and poster tear down, and results.These recommendations are for consideration only.
On September 5th, 2017 nominations opened for students seeking to join the BOD. Candidates were required to obtain 50 signatures from students who were SAITSA members. To become a qualified candidate, a completed nomination package was to be submitted by noon on September 20th or September 27th, 2017.
The same day candidates submitted a completed nomination package they were able to attend a candidates meeting at 5:00pm. Once a candidate completed the two steps of submitting a nomination package and attending a meeting, they became eligible for campaigning. There were eight candidates in attendance at the first candidates’ meeting and eight at the second candidates’ meeting.Both meetings employedthe same proceedings and agenda. Two candidates were determined to be unable to run, and were removed from the candidate slate once determined by SAIT.
SAITSA was provided a voter list from SAIT prior to the Add/Drop deadline. Voting was expected to be opened on October 4th at 08:30am.However, approximately 4000 of eligible voter emails were delayed by an error by the election software vendor.On October 5th the voting email was successfully sent to all eligible student voters. The resulting decrease of a 24-hour period of voting time for many students resulted in a significant decrease of overall voters over previous years. On October 5th the voting came to a close at 4:00pm with 721 of 12571 (Including7 paper ballots) eligible student voters having cast a vote (5.74%). This was a 27% drop in voter turnout, as a result of the decrease of 2.1% from 2016 (7.84%).
Overall, the SAITSA BOD election process was a success.Despite delays, the election was both open and fair, with excellent accountability of all candidates.This election marked the least candidate infringement, seen in the lowest demerit points allocated in the past three SAITSA elections.
Candidates Elected
The SAITSA political committee would like to congratulate all of the participants, supporters and voters of the 2017/2018 SAITSA Board of Directors. The following 14 candidatesweresuccessful in their campaigns:
-Jess Beddow
-Joshua Bettle
-Kaylee Beyene
-Matthew Busby
-Daniel Caine
-Ninar Chaachouh
-Jesse Corbel
-Hunter Mills
-Ryan Morstad
-Ha Nguyen
-Donny Nichols
-Carol Poole
-Akhil Sharma
-Desiree Venne
Overview
This report will provide an overview of Political Committee activity, nomination periods, candidate meetings, campaign period, voting, and results. Issues will be identified and recommendations provided following each section of the report.
This BOD election saw the lowest amount of demerits issued to candidates.The system was instituted last year with 1 point being a basic penalty for minor infractions of policy such as improper poster placement, while 10 isthe highest penalty resulting from significant infractions such as damage to SAIT and/or SAITSA property (see Appendix A). After eight points a candidate can be considered for removal.However during this election the Political Committee issued only four points in total.,There were few areas where the Political Committee intervened.Notably, these were areas where the policies and procedures were lacking in direction. These are noted throughout this report, but notably was the voting process and ballot, and accountability of the Political Committee.
Political Committee
The Political Committee is comprised of four members, the Chief Returning Officer (CRO), the Deputy Returning Officer (DRO), Student at Large (SAL), and the SAITSA Governance and Advocacy Manager as an ex-officio, non-voting member.
Jennifer Dotchin: Chief Returning Officer
David Jones:Deputy Returning Officer
AndreaJuarez: Student at Large
Rachel Paris: Ex-Officio, Governance and Advocacy Manager
The members of the committee discussed candidate questions, reviewed campaign materials, voting activities and enforced policies & procedures pertaining to the election.
Issues and Recommendations
-The political committee uses both the SAITSA email system, as well as Hotmail accounts.This meant that the system of communication is cumbersome, as the sender email addresses did not transfer to the Gmail accounts which resulted in the Committee member needing to find the email address or emails being sent to the wrong address. It is recommended that the Political Committee be allocated temporary SAITSA emails.
-The Policies and Procedures are not clear as to the reporting relationship of members within the committee, and who has full accountability for the decision-making process.In one situation, the Political Committee did not all agree and the decision resulted in a situation where the process can be questioned.This should be outlined in the P&P in the future.
Nomination Period
In order to be nominated for SAITSA’s BOD Election, the student must receive 50 signatures of students whose SAITSA membership fees are paid in full. Students who did not meet the criteria for official nomination were not entered into the election. There were two nomination periods for this election. On September 5th, 2017 nominations opened for students seeking a seat on the BOD. Candidates were required to obtain 50 signatures from students who were SAITSA members. To become a qualified candidate, a completed nomination package was to be submitted by noon on September 20th or September 27th, 2017.
Once the candidate submitted a nomination package, they were eligible to attend a candidates meeting at the end of the nomination period to discuss the policies and procedures with the Political Committee.As per the Policies and Procedure document, a candidate is not able to campaign unless they attend this meeting.
There were 8 candidates in attendance. The secondary nomination period concluded one week following September 28th at 12:00pm. There were 8 candidates in attendance here as well, bringing the total number of candidates to 16.However, two candidates were unable to stand at this election leaving a remaining 14.
This low number shifted the vote to a yes/no.Last year’s challenges with this were noted, and the voting vendor added the ability to have a yes/no/abstain.The Political Committee recommended the use of the ‘abstain’ due to voter confusion last year.
Issues and Recommendations
-Low candidate volume and Student Awareness:Once again, there were a low number of students running for the BOD.A full SAITSA Board compliment is 15, however, there were only 14 students that were able to run.This left one spot unfilled on the board, and shifted the election to a yes/no/abstain voting process.
- It is recommended that SAITSA reduce the number of signatures to 25, as per previous years.
- Continue to review social media and other advertisements to improve engagement of the student body
Campaign Period
There were two campaign periods for this election. All candidates were eligible to start campaigning after attending the Candidates’ Meeting.Each candidate conducted their own independent campaign with a maximum budget of two hundred dollars. All candidates were directed to inform the Political Committee of all messages and content being used in their respective campaign.The Political Committee received only twonotices of infraction during this campaign period.
Issues and Recommendations
-Candidate not meeting SAIT eligibility:There were two candidates that attended the candidate meetings, who after review did not meet the policy and procedures criteria for standing as candidates and were removed from the process.
- It is recommended that candidates are reviewed and vetted by SAIT before attendance at the candidate meeting.
-Policies and Procedures: The Policies and Procedures document is still out of date and contains many deficiencies.
Voting and Poster Tear Down
The SAITSA BOD Election 2017 used an online voting system through an independent third-party company. To participate in voting, eligible students were sent an email to their SAIT email address with voting information. From here they could find information about the candidates and place their vote(s). Online voting provides real-time information, which prevents paper ballot recounts and facilitates valuable data analysis post-election
However, this year due to an error by the vendor in using the incorrect IP address, SAIT IT infrastructure believed that these emails were spam and quarantined them. It is estimated that 4000 SAITSA members did not receive their voting package email.The vendor was unable to resend until the following business day, which led to mass confusion, and the resulting low voterturnout.A reminder email was successfully sent out to those who had not yet voted on October 5h.
Seven paper ballots were completed due to issues with the internet and submission of the digital completed ballot.The Manager of Governance & Advocacy monitored the process. The hand-counted votes are includedin the official results.
Due to 4000 voters not being able to vote, the Political Committee reviewed the ability to extend voting by one day in order to ensure consistentvoter participation. Thissolution brought to light a number of challenges, as there was unclear guidance in the P&P document on accountability for decision making regarding the election process.Furthermore, manycandidates felt it was unfair to them for adding another voting day.It was decided to keep the election time/dates the same as is to ensure transparency, however, the voter turnout data reflects this issue.
On October 5th the voting came to a close at 4:00pm with 721 of 12571 (Including 7 paper ballots) eligible student voters having cast a vote (5.74%). This was a decrease of 2.1% from 2016 (7.84%).
Issues and Recommendations
-There is unclear governance on the accountability of the election process in the P&Ps.There is a need to note who has ultimate decision making power and responsibility. The definition of the CRO, DRO, and student at large is lacking in description of who is accountable, and how decisions should be made. These should be included in the next P&Ps.
-Review options of voting software vendors. Specifically consider an on campus solution, or vendors that operate in Canada to ensure that privacy legislation is met as well as having timely responsiveness and technical support needs.
-Review the current vendor contract for warranty and technical support requirements.
-Continue to reach out to specific departments that are not on the main campus to ensure diversity of the BOD. Student body engagement to grow participation as candidate and voters
-Review the mechanisms for voting (SAIT email) to broaden and improve reach, include technological solutions as well as mix methods.
Budgets and Results
At 4:00pm on October 5, 2017 the polls closed.Candidates were required to submit their Campaign Budget Forms (Budget) to V204, care of the SAITSA Governance and Advocacy Manager. Candidates must disclose all expenses incurred during their election. Following the election results the Political Committee met to discuss budgets and poster teardowns.
Official Results
Name / Yesvotes / No votes / Abstain / ElectedJess Beddow / 381 / 104 / 82 / Yes
Joshua Bettle / 409 / 96 / 61 / Yes
Kaylee Beyene / 351 / 121 / 72 / Yes
Matthew Busby / 337 / 128 / 74 / Yes
Daniel Caine / 390 / 95 / 74 / Yes
Ninar Chaachouh / 362 / 101 / 81 / Yes
Jesse Corbel / 387 / 90 / 70 / Yes
Hunter Mills / 437 / 92 / 41 / Yes
Ryan Morstad / 399 / 84 / 60 / Yes
Ha Nguyen / 389 / 119 / 69 / Yes
Donny Nichols / 355 / 119 / 69 / Yes
Carol Poole / 339 / 109 / 87 / Yes
Akhil Sharma / 411 / 110 / 52 / Yes
Desiree Venne / 398 / 81 / 75 / Yes
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