Thursday February 11, 2015

know

insight

experience

SINCE 1906

westerngazette.ca THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016 • WESTERN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER • VOLUME 109 ONLINE ELECTION ISSUE chorney for god since 1906

Viva Avila!

Team Avila easily win USC election.  PAGE 2 Voter turnout up — but many abstain from referendum question  PAGE 3 Elections go off without a hitch for the first time in years.  PAGE 4 TAYLOR LASOTA GAZETTE

www.westerngazette.ca

2 • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016

know

Team Avila wins slate election Team Avila has been elected as the next president and vice-president of the University Students’ Council.

Team Avila’s president-elect Eddy Avila and vice-president elect Jamie Cleary won with 3,968 votes, beating second place slate Palin-Cohen, who finished with 2,552 votes.

“It’s honestly just been one of the coolest journeys I think we’ve ever been on,” fourth-year sciene student Eddy Avila said after the win. “We’re so happy and so grateful.”

“Oh my God, I don’t know what to say I’m so overwhelmed, I’m so happy for Eddy,” said his mom Aida. “Both of them worked so hard.”

Jamie Cleary, Avila’s running mate, expressed his excitement with the win.

“We’re so happy,” said Cleary, also a fourth-year science student. “Thank you to everybody who voted for us and everybody who supported us. We’re really excited to get started.”

Runner-up Brandon Palin said the loss was hard but Team Avila will have a great time next year.

“It’s obviously something that’s hard to take, but Robbie and I put 110 [per cent] into it,” Palin said. “Looking back, it’s been an incredible experience, and I’m super proud of everything we’ve accomplished, and I’m super excited for Eddy and Jamie.”

Team Roy’s presidential candidate Mike Roy and vice-presidential candidate Aidan Mckendrick finished a distant third with 451 votes.

“I sort of expected them to win,” said Roy. “It was close, it was good and first thing we said to them was ‘we’re going to make sure we’re gonna hold you guys accountable and we’re gonna be riding your asses.’”

USC vice-president external Lindsee Perkins congratulated all the slates on a good campaign.

“We are so incredibly proud of all three slates,” said Perkins. “This election was more exciting than any that I’ve seen before.

■■GAZETTE NEWS

PHOTOS BY TAYLOR LASOTA GAZETTE

Palin-Cohen second and Team Roy a distant third

Team Avila: 3,968 votes Palin-Cohen: 2,552 votes Team Roy: 451 votes

6.5%

36.6%

56.9%

•

• www.westerngazette.ca

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016 • 3

know

OTHER ELECTIONS RESULTS Senator-at-large Madeline Crystal Harry Orbach-Miller Arjun Singh Becky Meharchand Bryce Paxton Alexander Pearson Social Science senator Mitchell Pratt Business, Education, Engineering and Law senator Zac Turner Faculty of Health Sciences president Riley Garno Kinesiology Students’ Association president Paula Hepburn Faculty of Education president Devon Bishundant King’s University Students’ Council president Nate Little London Youth Advisory Council Olivia Gomes

Robbie Cohen, left, and Brandon Palin, right, of Palin-Cohen.

KYLE PORTER GAZETTE Mike Roy, far left, and Aidan Mckendrick, far right, of Team Roy.

“Hard to take” Runners-up react to results AMY O’KRUK NEWS EDITOR @AMYATGAZETTE Palin-Cohen held their heads up high after losing the USC presidential elections to Team Avila by a margin of 1,416 votes.

Overall, the slate won 36.6 per cent of votes cast with 2,552, but they were trumped by Team Avila’s 3,968 ballots — 56.9 per cent of the vote. The remaining 6.5 per cent of voters’ support went to Team Roy. Fourth-year social science student Palin said he wouldn’t change the way he and running mate Robbie Cohen ran their campaign, and wished Team Avila good luck as they lead next year’s University Students’ Council executive.

“It’s obviously something that’s hard to take, but Robbie and I put 110 [per cent] into it,” Palin said.

“I’m super excited for Eddy and Jamie … and I can’t even begin to thank everyone for everything that they’ve done.”

Palin said he’s planning on taking some time to think about what he’ll do next — potentially traveling this summer.

Fourth-year Huron student Cohen, however, said he knows what his plan is: he’s coming back for a fifth year at Western.

“Students spoke and [Team Avila] ran an incredible campaign,” Cohen said. “The main thing that I’m taking

away from this is that we all ran a clean campaign.… I think we set a precedent, so I’m very happy about that, moving forward.”

Social science student Lucy Bogle, who supported Palin-Cohen during their campaign, also looked on the bright side.

“I was a little surprised,” Bogle said. “I didn’t think that Team Avila was going to win and I was surprised by how much they won, but I think it’s awesome there was [better] voter turnout than last year.”

Team Roy’s Aidan Mckendrick said his team was happy Team Avila got the win.

“We said in the second debate that we would vote for them if we could vote for anyone” Mckendrick said. “They were the most closely aligned with where we would want to see it go.

But, we said no matter what we’re going to be working on the issues that we saw ... It has been great to see how many people came out to support us.”

Mckendrick said his running mate Mike Roy and himself would continue their activism on campus in the coming months and hold Team Avila accountable.

“The elections may be done, but me and Mike will still be running events and protests on campus so if you supported us and want to get involved please contact us.” n

Voter turnout up as new system proves its worth IAIN BOEKHOFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF @IAINATGAZETTE Voter turnout in this year’s University Students’ Council election was 24.1 per cent, beating last year’s turnout.

Turnout for the PVP slate election was lower at 21.6 per cent and just 19.6 per cent of eligible voters answered the referendum question. A 20 per cent turnout was needed to make the referendum valid.

Polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and the elections governance committee provided the turnout numbers to The Gazette shortly afterward.

In 2014, voter turnout was 19.6 per cent. Last year, voter turnout was 23.7 per cent, with 7,747 undergraduate students casting their ballots. However, 1,314 of those students didn’t vote for a presidential slate, compared with

785 this year.

The USC used a new voting system that other universities have used to avoid the many problems past years elections have faced.

“So far, from the feedback I’ve gotten is the system is working well, the system is secure and running as it should be,” said Andrew Chorney, USC chief returning officer.

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, they got a report certifying the results and confirming there were no breaches.

The new system only allows users to see voter turnout and not what the votes were while polls were open. Furthermore, until the results were announced at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the only people who knew the outcome of the election were Chorney and the USC’s IT manager, Geoff Pimlatt. This is in contrast to previous years when incumbent executives would know

rolling results throughout the voting period, leading to allegations of vote count leaks.

Candidates have been careful this year to not break any rules, asking questions of the elections committee before doing something. This is in contrast to last year’s election, when both presidential slates were awarded double digit demerit points, leading to the eventual disqualification of Team Litchfield.

“I think that the majority of candidates have been very careful this election season,” Chorney said. “A lot have asked a lot of great questions when they weren’t sure and everyone has been very proactive I think in this election season — I think it’s made for a relatively less chaotic election season from an elections governance committee perspective.”

■■WITH FILES FROM HAMZA TARIQ.

Out of 32,225 eligible undergraduate voters 6,273 voted in referendum

19.5%

6,971 voted in the PVP slate election 7,756 students voted JORDAN MCGAVIN GAZETTE

USC ELECTION

21.6% 24.1%

BY THE NUMBERS

www.westerngazette.ca

4 • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016

know

•

The ghost of elections past The USC elections have seen it all — and the same things keep popping up AMY O’KRUK NEWS EDITOR @AMYATGAZETTE ONE HORSE LEFT RUNNING BEHIND 2007: Although Chris Reynolds, Tom Stevenson and Josh Safer all ran for University Students’ Council president, The Gazette called it a “twohorse race” between Reynolds and Stevenson.

2016: Eddy Avila, Brandon Palin and Mike Roy all vied for the presidency, but 93 per cent of students threw their support behind Team Avila or Palin-Cohen.

FAILED REFERENDUMS 1981: A proposal to make Western’s Medway-Sydenham residence co-educational the following year failed (but Western’s administration did it anyway).

2016: The Propel referendum failed, with 64.8 per cent of students voting against the proposal.

PRESIDENTIAL OOPS! 1981: Jeff Ball won the presidency by a margin of three votes tallying 2,049 compared to the 2,046 votes cast for runner-up Peter Luchak. Two days later and after a recount, the USC announced Luchak actually won the elections by four votes.

2015: Jack Litchfield wins the USC elections, by a 32 vote margin over Sophie Helpard. Two months later, Sophie Helpard is declared president after an appeals board disqualifies Litchfield for breaking too many elections rules during his campaign.

“GAZETTE TOLD IT FUCKED UP AGAIN” 1998: Brett Slade, who lost the USC presidential elections by over 800 votes to president-elect Ian Armour, said he lost the elections because “The Gazette fucked up … you chose the wrong candidate to endorse.”

2016 (jk, every year): There will always be students who grumble over The Gazette’s annual USC elections endorsement. Highlights from this year’s comment section include: “The Gazette ed board probably should get their head out of their collective ass,” and “this editorial is a joke, filled with meaningless platitudes.”

ANDREW CHORNEY, will you be my valentine?

Green Eggs and Hamza HAMZA TARIQ BREAKING NEWS EDITOR @HAMZAATGAZETTE USC elections are almost always a hot mess.

Here’s a recap of the most recent fuck ups: In 2011, confusion loomed over senate elections when students were told by the chief returning officer they could only vote for one candidate instead of the traditional seven.

In 2012, the elections website was hacked, which led to the results being cancelled and a revote.

In 2013, a revote was scheduled after some students were unable to vote in their constituencies. In 2014, the same problem occurred along with some students not being able to vote at all. Then in 2015, the presidential slate-elect was disqualified two months after winning one of the closest elections in recent history.

So when the 2016 election season came around, all eyes were on the chief returning officer and the elections committee. Would they break the USC jinx? Or was it going

to be the sixth edition of the annual elections fiasco?

I’m glad to report that this year’s chief returning officer and his elections committee turned out to be the heroes the USC needed and Western students deserved. Andrew Chorney, deputy returning officer Erin McCauley and their team ran a tight ship from the beginning. They were articulate and transparent from start to end, and were committed to running a clean and fair election.

Chorney was constantly available to the media and held a meeting with The Gazette back in December to work on communication problems in past years. Media releases on elections committee decisions were sent out right away.

Committee meeting minutes were available on the new voteusc. ca website. The new website is also much more user friendly and made it easier for students to read up on candidates, follow the elections and report violations. Surprisingly, the USC finally solved its technical dilemmas and no online glitches were reported in this year’s polls.

While voter turnout at Western continues to be unspectacular, the elections committee conducted a good outreach program. Committee members were sitting at booths in

the UCC to inform students about the elections process in January.

During the polling period, they set up polling booths across campus to encourage students to vote. I believe this contributed to the slight uptick in voter turnout this year with 24.1 per cent of students casting their ballots.

To be fair, the job of this year’s elections committee was made easier by putting an end to the no online campaigning rule during the polling period and an overall cleanup of By-law 2, which governs elections.

But communication with candidates was still better than in previous years. The mandatory all-candidates meeting at the beginning of the election, while not the most riveting, informed candidates of all they needed to know to avoid demerit points. In the few instances where demerit points were handed out, the committee let the candidate and the public know the rationale behind their decision.

This has been one of the least controversial and tumultuous elections periods ever. I hope future CROs follow Chorney’s lead and continue a new tradition of openness and controversy free elections. n

ELECTIONS VOTING FIASCO 1999: Two USC councillors were mistakenly declared unofficial winners after the USC prematurely published elections results.

2016: For the first time, the elections results were released the day after polls closed to ensure absolute accuracy ensuring Team Avila is here to stay.