Newly elected Academic Commissioners Kassim Amery and Birju Dattani's campaigns violated six election bylaws during the Students' Union by-election according to an SU vice-president.
Phrases like "campaigns hijacked democracy," "poor moral character," and "bylaws were violated with impunity" described two unidentified candidates' campaigns in the SU Chief Returning Officer's by-election report to the Students' Legislative Council Tue., Nov. 18.
SU Vice-President Operations and Finance Gavin Preston confirmed the two campaigns alluded to in the SU CRO's report were Amery and Dattani's.
Preston was handing out election awareness flyers in the MacEwan Student Centre food court Thu., Oct 23. When he approached students, he asked if they had voted in the election yet. A female student indicated she did vote and pointed to two males with a laptop at an adjacent table.
"Birju Dattani was nearby," said Preston. "I had seen what [SU CRO] Shuvaloy [Majumdar] was talking about. A former SU presidential candidate, Mohamed El-Rafih, was there."
Preston conversed with Majumdar and they both returned to the food court to speak further with the female student.
"The girl put her ID number in [to the InfoNet] and they, Moe and Birju, put in the vote," said Preston. "It was obvious what was going on. I could see Birju and [Kassim] Amery walking around with a laptop.
"I witnessed it myself, specifically, the two candidates."
These events were touched on in Majumdar's report to SLC. Majumdar briefly commented the Oct. 23-25 by-election was as busy as the general election but spoke mainly on the campaigns of Dattani and Amery, whom he did not mention by name.
"When democratic principles are violated--and they were by specific campaigns in the 2003 by-election-- I hunger to take action rather than hide in the dredges of bureaucracy and rules," said Majumdar, reading from his report.
Majumdar reported the two campaigns "widely and without hesitation compromised these bylaws." Six bylaws were broken according to the report, including "no person shall prevent or attempt to prevent electors from exercising their right to vote" (66 (1) (C)) and "while an elector is in a voting compartment, no other person except someone assisting an incapacitated elector, may enter the voting compartment or be in a position to see how the elector marks the ballot" (54 (2)).
Campus members informed the CRO of these infractions.
"Members of a minority community on campus have been in my office, sharing the details of these activities with me, but insisted that I do not maintain a paper record of those conversations," said Majumdar. "They insisted that they not be placed in a position where specific members of their communities would ostracize them."
At the center of the controversy is Dattani and Amery's use of a laptop computer with a wireless network card in MSC during the election, which Preston witnessed. Under election expenses, Dattani will be reimbursed for the $50 wireless Internet card.
"[Voters] were not unduly influenced," said Dattani. "There was direction if they needed to use a laptop, at their own leisure. We were not around to compromise privacy."
Amery understands Majumdar's role as CRO but was concerned about the report's comments.
"To comment directly to the campaign is a little harsh," said Amery, adding he was also concerned the report identified an ex-presidential candidate as part of the campaign team. "We have no control over who does what."
Dattani and Amery looked at the bylaws and did not see anything against their strategy.
"If the law does not exist, does it make the tactic illegal?" questioned Dattani. "You get into ethical and moral issues. I hope people have enough moral fabric about them."
However, Majumdar feels differently about the matter.
"These campaigns demonstrated poor moral character and made the wrong moral choices," said Majumdar at the meeting. "And they got away with it. If you feel robbed, then you know how I have felt since the day the results of the vote were announced. What's worse is that no justice will be seen by the candidates who lost unfairly."
Majumdar did not want to bring this to the review board as the CRO. In his speech, Majumdar said he had little hard evidence to bring to an election review board and he could not break his trust with the witnesses nor could he prepare another SU member or candidate to present a complicated case.
"Because it would go against bylaw definition," explained Majumdar after his presentation. "It would change from an administrative role to judicial role. I would have broken the spirit of the bylaw."
Student representatives had mixed reactions to the report.
"I found it very thorough," said SU VP Academic Demetrios Nicolaides. "There is a judicial system in place to address concerns. The judicial system operates on the assumption of not guilty. I felt it was jumping the gun."
Academic Commissioner Beth Counsell said any assumptions were unsubstantiated without hard evidence and Operations and Finance Commissioner Lisa Willott warned council not to alienate Dattani and Amery over this matter.
"I found it a bit surprising," said Operations and Finance Commissioner Jarrod Fuhr. "It's very frustrating. The letter of the bylaws was not violated, but the principles have been. I'm looking very much forward to examining [the proposed election bylaws] in excruciating detail, to prevent, in future, these practices to continue."
Majumdar, working with Preston, presented revamped election bylaws for consideration at the next SLC meeting Tue., Nov. 25.
"This by-election is a signal of trends to come," said Majumdar. "Special interest campaigns comprise pools of highly-motivated supporters. They comprise largely single-issue candidates and platforms. They comprise an uncompromising agenda.
"Concordia [University] and some other campuses have seen the costs of negligence and lethargy in the face of vast challenges. I ask you to not forsake your responsibility at the table and in these chambers to serve and represent students."
Nicolaides has not heard if any judicial process has been started against the two.
"If there's a case, we'll look into it and see if it violated anything," said Nicolaides.
Comments
I honestly don't think that is the case, but I have now come to know that Preston has had conflicts with Dattani prior to this when it came to other issues. This is like a real life soap opera on campus!
And I agree with Ben, but also agree with the fellow with the counterpoint. I can claim that an SU member has child pornography on his/her computer, claim that I have witnesses who've complained, but do not want to talk about it in public for fear of being harmed. Now, despite the fact that an investigation hasn't yet occurred, could this be printed in the Gauntlet? Judging from what happened recently, it's quite possible, isn't it?
I don't agree with the comments that claim that this is racially motivated, but I would say that they hold as much weight as Preston's Majumdar's claims. Yet we aren't going to see a front page article titled, "Racism in the SU?"...
I don't normally respond to troll posts as malformed as yours, but...
When we say foo said this, we are reciting what was said to us, and have documentation of these things being said. Where the facts are not clear, or evidence is not strong, we use words such as 'allege' or 'claim'.
On the other hand, I doubt that those claiming the CRO is a racist, or that Preston has personal issues have the evidence to back that up (or if they do, they have not presented it).
-Ben
Read carefully: The CRO alleges that some bylaws were broken. We reprinted the text of those bylaws. The CRO does not say anyone in particular broke bylaws. Preston does. Therefore, we can say that these bylaws were the ones that the CRO says were broken. We can also say "SU Vice-President Operations and Finance Gavin Preston confirmed the two campaigns alluded to in the SU CRO's report were Amery and Dattani's," because we have documentation to the effect that Gavin said that. This is near the top (third paragraph) so that readers will hopefully grasp that we base the connection between the naughty campaigns and those of the two pictured on this statement.
And I don't personally care if Gavin has been to the review board, or if only 10 per cent of the people vote (the number is not exactly 10 per cent as you claim, but that also is immaterial to your argument). Those items are petty, a poor substitute for genuine arguments, and the first has been examined by a court of competent jurisdiction. They do not have anything to do with the argument you are attempting articulate here.
I don't know if you are simply repeatedly failing to understand the train of logic presented in the story, or if you are asking very rudimentary questions for your own amusement, but please enlighten yourself before continuing to splice someone else's quotes as a substitute for an opinion of your own. (And I do apologise if there is something in your argument that has simply gone over my head.)
If you simply wish to have a debate on this for the sake of having a debate, please find someone else. On the other hand, if you wish to engage in a constructive dialogue where we each learn something, please avail yourself of the text of the bylaws, the CRO's report, and a re-reading of this article. We would be glad to discuss with (not "post/talk at") you at that point.
EOT.
[Edit: That would be yes, political science, for the next seven months or so. Sorry for the initial crypticness (although I've been told philosophy people got a good chuckle out of my original answer).]
The CRO says two candidates (he was specific in this number if not with names) broke bylaws by using wireless laptop computers to solicit votes. Two candidates, the ones implicated in this story, are very open about the fact that they did this, and that they even informed the CRO of their activities. Hell, they even defend it: "You say it like it's a bad thing."
I fail to see any real question, other than from trolls lurking on this comment board, that these two candidates a) used wireless laptops in a way that the CRO described, and b) that these two candidates are the two the CRO was talking about.
As far as I know, neither candidate is even denying this. Even when I personally asked them both in question period immediately following the CRO report, neither made anything resembling a denial. Instead, they said that they didn't think their use of wireless laptops as described by the CRO was unlawful or morally wrong.
So debate that. They did this. They admit that they did.
Was it right?
I would argue no.
0) The two commissioners can be guilty of many things independent of anything Gavin or anyone else may or may not have done.
1) The SU tribunal does not make findings of guilt or innocence as such. Read an article, or the SU bylaws to find the terminology they use.
2) Putting quotation marks around a word that no one stated does not make that word a quote from anyone but yourself, and lends no benefit to your argument.
3) Before you accuse Batiuk of anything, understand what the situation is, and what you are saying. You look less like a fool that way.
4) Yes, your sentence structure did give you away, "Gavin's Guilty Too" and "Crooked CRO". Though I'm glad you're trying hard to overcome whatever cognitive disability it is you have.
I told a reporter what I saw. Nothing more, nothing less. Neither I nor the CRO have ever named anyone breaking any bylaws.
As a law student, you are certainly good at discrediting your arguments with personal, unsubstantiated attacks.
I'm the only person to be successfully brought before the review board.? One, it is not difficult to bring one in front of the review board. But you knew that, right, seeing as you are a law student and could easily grasp our current procedures and bylaws. Two, you really need to look into our history.
Besides that, election bylaws are to blame? Exactly. Hence why I have wrote up and proposed a brand new election bylaw. No review board, no tribunal, no slander, no dragging people through long judicial processes. Rather, lets fix the problems and find a positive here.
If these people said, "vote for me, please" There is nothing wrong with it. If they went further and explained their platform, again, this is part of democracy, educating the voters is PART OF THIER JOB. I'm guessing that is why Datanni said "you say it as if it's a bad thing".
On the other hand, if they forced the voters to vote one way or another, and this is possible if THEY MARKED THE BALLOTS THEMSELVES while asking for the voters username and password, I would agree with Ben Li's opinion completely. But that hasn't happened, and there wasn't even allegations that such a thing happenned.
Ben, is it possible for me to write an article on my opinion whether or not democracy has been hindered in any way with wireless technology? I think the issue is a debatable one, and it should be debated within the next few issues of the Gauntlet. I would argue that democracy has been enhanced by bringing polling stations to voters, and someone can disagree, but I'm sure that bringing up this one point would factor into people's equations of whether or not what occurred was fair to the other candidates and to democracy on campus.
opinions@gauntlet.ucalgary.ca or letters@gauntlet.ucalgary.ca to find out how your thoughts on this issue can appear in print as a column or letter.
If people aren't up speed, Lauren Batiuk gave Ralph Klein a raving promotion on his great work with provincial funds.
Also, the focus of our reporting is not on what goes on in our web discussions (usually). There's some fun stuff being said about Kyoto at times at the end of that story ...
http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/survey/showresults.php?question=58 was the poll on the recent by-election. You can get to results from previous polls by clicking on the "Other Polls" link from the current (or any) poll.
-Ben
I don't particularly care that you want to post the same comment IN ALL CAPS over and over again using different names, but please don't post slanderous or abusive stuff. Several of your comments have been removed because of this. If you wish to repost those comments, please elaborate with evidence as to why you think the persons you referred to have the qualities you attribute to them.
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