Omar Chaaban has been disqualified from the AMS President race, by some random twist of fate that really, really sucks for him by having only 49 nominators instead of 50.
“It will not be revoked, I wouldn’t have disqualified him otherwise.” -Erik Mackinnon, Elections Administrator
In order to be nominated, you need 50 signatures. It is usually recommended that you get more than 50 in case some people lie to you/write ineligibly/be human, and that’s even allotted on the form. Omar got exactly 50 signatures, and two of them were, well, iffy.
Turns out that one of the numbers was deemed legible by enrolment services but that the other number nominator “was not currently a member of the Alma Mater Society of Vancouver.” Apparently the nominator is currently taking classes, but enrolment services is adamant they are not allowed to nominate/vote in the elections, so we don’t have exact details.
Sorry, Omar <3 To cheer you up, we give you this:
PS In a funny twist of fate, this editor’s student number was also “iffy”, but she was deemed eligible in the end.
oh no, the guy who said he is ashamed to be Canadian cant be the president of the AMS what a shame.
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I remember this happening last year with a different presidential candidate, but he was un-disqualified after the dubious signatures were found to be legit after all.
But Omar can’t be undisqualified, since this is an issue of about getting a signature from someone who was technically not a voting student who can’t possibly be legit.
And because Omar only had 50 signatures, he has nothing to fall back on.
A student taking classes is necessarily a member of the AMS. Enrolment Services is mistaken, as they often are when it comes to AMS membership. Read AMS Bylaw 2.
Maybe because of financial problems, they were exempt from AMS fees?
“BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Governors hereby approves as circulated the amended Alma Mater Society Code of Procedure that sets out in Article 3 a revised list of categories of students with AMS fee exemption, effective September 1, 2010.”
http://bog.ubc.ca/files/2010/10/MIN-BG-2010.06.09-open.pdf
I have no idea where/can’t seem to find a copy of the AMS Code or Procedure, but maybe there’s something new in there?
Greetings,
Blake’s comment here was forwarded to me.
I’m sorry but we’re not able to explain why this person is not an AMS member due to privacy laws. I’ve now triple checked though and the only way I could see us being mistaken would be if this person is a VST/RC student who mistakenly gave a UBC Student number instead of a current theological college one (as we don’t have those lists yet).
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The point being, there ARE ways in which a student enrolling in a class at UBC could not be allowed to nominate a candidate.
The word is Omar is planning to try and contest it, though.
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well chris should probably check whether or not it’s a VST student. this is the problem we ran into last year because one of our presidential candidates got 4 or so signatures from VST/Regent college students and all signatures were valid. might want to check that before disqualifying (unlike the mistake I made).