Tag Archives: senate

Jeff Abeysekera, why don’t you support Jeff Abeysekera?

“Disendorsed” is a new feature we’ll be running throughout the elections season, and possibly onward as student politicans continue to fail and old hacks continue to make fun of their petty failures. Ain’t student involvement grand?

DISENDORSEMENT: Jeff Abeysekera
DISENDORSED BY: Jeff Abeysekera

“jumping_jeff_flash” (he has gas? gas? gas?) tried to put up an AMA on the /r/ubc subreddit which managed to get a whopping 0 upvotes and 4 downvotes so far. ZERO upvotes? What the fuck? Reddit automatically awards one upvote (from the post’s authour) to every. single. submission. That means Jeff has managed remove the upvote on his own post. When you don’t think asking yourself questions is a worthwhile endeavour, what does that say about your candidacy?

Luckily for us all, he did answer the one question posted, “How do you pronounce your last name?” Now, when people ask “Who’s the guy whose platform consists of four meaningless and patronizing buzzwords?” [Jay Shah’s campaign would phrase it thusly: technology. integration. social. media.] you can respond knowingly with “Jeff. Jeff uh-bay-say-ker-ah” rather than just “uh, that Jeff guy, I think?”

Conclusion: As the kids would say, “fail.” DISENDORSED.

Hack vs. Hack

Oh goodness, y’all.

In a grandiose lesson about knocking on wood, not counting chickens before eggs are hatched, ETCETERA, in tonight’s council meeting our illustrious EA Isabel informed the group that the heretofore scandal-free AMS elections were, in fact, scandalicious.

Ladies and gentlemen: it appears we got hacked.

like, it was way rad

For big fat details in all their glory, you can read the full text of the Elections Fraud Report.  A quick summary follows, however, for you kids on the go.

  1. Mark Latham, Voter Funded Media guru, was analyzing data for his own purposes & discovered an apparent irregularity; he notified Isabel, who alerted the proper authorities.
  2. There are 731 “Suspect Votes” which were identified as being from the same IP address & voting in a four-hour bloc (a very large number of votes in a very short amount of time).
  3. An independent party, Forensic Data Recovery (FDR), has been hired to investigate this occurrence and see if their are other instances of voter fraud in the elections.
  4. These 731 votes affect ONLY the following races:
  • the single passing referendum (tuition policy = LOWER PLZ)
  • UBC Senate
  • VFM
  • OH FUCK WHAT

It’s still uncertain how the suspicious activity happened, whether or not saved votes were overwritten or the fraudulent votes were independent, etc. etc.  Is it possible that previous races were affected? oh yes.  Is it possible that there is undetectable fraud happening in our elections? Well, in the words of Speaker Dave:

We said they were a hacker. We didn’t say they were a super-smart hacker.

Sleep soundly, voters.  Oh, and the UBC Votes team (AUS, EUS, HKUS, & SUS) will not be using this online voting system, they will use WebVote. And you, O Computer Elite of the Cloning Powers, we have but one request for you:

OH GOD PLEASE it's been such a slow month

Aaaand they’re off.

Day one after the announcement of candidates, and rumor has it

(and by ‘rumor’ I mean verifiable evidence plus the natural supposition that of course elections officials are in Panic Epic Work Mode at the moment)

that Chief Elections Officer & CEO of Our Hearts Isabel Ferreras has spent her morning off and on the phone to her staff.  Certainly we’ve already seen three—three!—BoG candidates drop out.  Goodbye, Peter Stein, AJ Hajir Hajian, and Nader Beyzaei—we hardly knew ye.

We’ve got the complete list for you after the break, but first, let’s take a little walk down quelle scandale potentiale lane, y’all.

The buzz at beer last night and brunch this morning was triplefold—quadruple if you count the cheap Gallery pitchers—but it boils down to this:

  1. Blake Frederick.  It’s been too easy lately to forget that our BF came into office as something of a golden boy, hailed by supporters and detractors alike both for his passionate commitment and political credentials.

    Happier times.  (Photo: Gerald Deo)

    And despite—or perhaps because of—the shitshow that’s marked his end of term, Frederick hasn’t given up the political life.  He’s thrown his hat into, in fact, three races—not only the usual Senate/BoG pairing, but also the Ubyssey’s Board of Directors.  This last is interesting considering that Frederick & our beloved campus publication are not what you’d call the best of friends.  There have been scathing editorials all round and a rather sudden crackdown on AMS communications policy getting in the way of good relations.  With all that history, one wonders what the Ubyssey Board could look like at this time next year—assuming, of course, that Frederick doesn’t disqualify himself by winning another race.

  2. The positions of interest. Although it’s not unusual to see BoG, Senate, and VP External attract a few more competitors than other positions, this year’s International Student Rep hopefuls are almost frighteningly numerous.  You guys know this position is non-voting, right?  (And Star, you know you submitted all materials without a last name, right? you do know? and it’s a thing? oh. cool.)  It’s also heartening to see two relative unknowns rounding out the Presidential nominees, although it makes hunting for pictures a heckuva lot harder.  Don’t even ask me about typing the tags up for this post.  RIDICULOUS.

    YOU SEE HOW I SUFFER FOR YOU

  3. The Elections Committee’s (presumed) accountability screed. One of the new features this year will be a PENALTY BOX on the Elections official website.  Isabel Ferreras is a formidable woman, as seen here:

    cower, puny candidates!! leg-biting will be penalized!

    and we have no doubt that she won’t hesitate to use this box, which purpose is to daily—publicly!—keep the voting public very aware of any and all “warnings, violations, infractions and penalties.” It’s a move we here at Fuzzy Kitten Unicorn Scandal are looking forward to a little too much, frankly.

BUT WHO ELSE is out there? here are the people we’ll be stalking bothering in the name of Fair Game Media Coverage for the next month:

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Men of Several Hours Ago

Before Council completely overshadows the outdated UN Debacle with its scintillating debate of whether or not to reallocate $1,000 for slam poetry at the Student Leadership Conference, we thought we’d show some love.

MAN OF THE HOUR #1: Edward Pullman, UVSS Director of Finance

Although some may question our commitment to the democratic process for this, we’d just like to point out that it takes balls the size of truck tires to ask students in Victoria to support a shitshow in Vancouver.  Plus, look at those puppy dog eyes.  Has Finance ever been this cute at the AMS?

MAN OF THE HOUR #2: Hillson Tse, Former Senator and Shit-Disturber

Not only is his entire Facebook full of photos like this, he’s also the creator of the Impeach the AMS Pres & VPX Group on aforementioned social network.  Politically active? check.  Witty, articulate, and snarky? check.  Roster of amazing eyebrow-based expressions? check. Oh, and he does ballroom dancing and likes puppies.  Be still my heart.