Category: Involvement / Leadership

Currently listening to: “Telephone” – Lady GaGa

Now that AUS elections are done and over, perhaps it might finally be appropriate for me to comment briefly on it, and the assorted accompanying drama. But first, let me extend a warm congratulations to next year’s newly elected councillors and executive. With the introduction of a new team, I am excited and hopeful in seeing how things will pan out over the next year.

Firstly, the $60 000 allocated to elections. In early March, I voted in favour of giving this money to the Elections Committee and UBC Votes team. This year’s turnout of nearly twice that of last year’s election (700-ish this year, vs. 300-ish last year) total voters can be attributed to the efforts made to raise the profile of elections through the harmonized elections events held throughout the week. From free food (!) to the Said the Whale concert to an epic dance party at the Museum of Anthropology, the UBC Votes team definitely did a stellar job at trying to raise awareness that student elections were ongoing.

However, that being said, even with these efforts, Arts failed to meet quorum (10% of students or 1000, whichever happens to be less) and Science’s election turnout was dismal as well (300-ish online votes if I heard right?). Why this unshakable voter apathy? At which point did students start to decide it was alright not to pick people to represent their interests and decide how to put their student fees to good – or well, better – use? Or more pertinently – at which point did students start to believe that it was alright to leave the voting to others, and follow up by grousing about how the AUS is ineffective and irrelevant to their lives? Far from defending the actions of the AUS with regards to what we’ve done – or rather, what we haven’t done – this year, I simply wonder what would have been different this past year if voter turnout had been higher for the 2009/2010 elections. In fact, I wonder that a lot about student government this year: if voter turnout had been higher and more properly representative of the student body at large, what would have been different?

Then, an election with multiple uncontested races; yet, the races which were contested ended up being ridiculously close- possibly the closest in any AUS race ever. The tiebreaker vote cast by Elections Administrator Matthew Naylor for the presidential race gave Brian Platt a one-vote victory over Ryan Trasolini. Doubtlessly a harrowing race for all parties involved, I am pleased, very much so – very much gratified at the direction this could take the AUS in the next year, and look forward to seeing how things pan out this upcoming year.

The race which I was running in, that for the position of AUS VP External, was also relatively close, with a 30-40 vote margin between myself and 2010/2011 VPX-elect, Carolee Changfoot (congratulations, dearie!) I had an incredibly fun time campaigning for it – my lovely photographer, campaign team, and all friends and supporters who’ve been a beacon of light and joy over the past weeks, thank you so much for the hugs and endless puns involving the word “rock”. My favourite might just be “demrockracy”. SO much win. As I mentioned in my message out, I’ve got some shenanigans up my sleeve so watch for those, and Tea Talks and Treats will resume once I bake more stuff.

This entry is getting to be quite lengthy: I shall follow up tomorrow/later tonight with a rather extensive post on the value of joke candidacies, so watch for that.

Cheers,
M.

P.S. Valentina, I finally caught a glimpse of you at yesterday’s AUS meeting! Hello there!