DUES Election Recap 2019

BY APARNA MOHAN

The end of March saw the conclusion of one of the most memorable Dalhousie Undergraduate Engineering Society (DUES) elections in recent history featuring record upper year student turnout, the inclusion of a presidential debate in the campaigning period and a fully filled executive by the end of the process. The newly minted DUES executives for the fall and winter terms of 2019-2020 are as follows:

The Sextant sat down with this year’s Elections Officer, Kyle Macleod, to chat more about his role and the ins and outs of ensuring a smooth and fair election process. Macleod is an enthusiastic and passionate 2nd year engineering student who says he was recommended for the role by a friend and drawn to the opportunity as a gateway to getting more involved with student life. Macleod credited his success in ensuring a smooth and fair election process to the guidance he received from former Elections Officer James McNeil and ESC Jenn Samson.

Macleod proudly reported, “We hosted our first presidential debate this year and we had close to 100 students show up and over 200 views on social media.” The presidential debate was hosted in the T-Room on Wednesday March 20 from 6pm to 8pm and moderated by Macleod. The debate was streamed live at this link and a transcript of the video was recorded at this link.

Macleod says the work done in preceding years by McNeil to establish guidelines and campaigning rules helped him allocate time towards incorporating a new feature into the campaign process: a presidential debate. Macleod sought out Samson’s experience as ESC to help him moderate the debate. In order to ensure that the debate was comprehensive in its reflection of student concerns, Macleod sourced questions from Sexton campus societies via emails sent out beforehand and took a select number of questions from the audience.

Other aspects of his role involved ensuring that candidates were adhering to campaigning rules regarding when and where it is permissible to do so. For example, it is against campaign policy to advertise in the Sexton library or gym and campaigning is restricted to a predetermined period outside of which posters should be taken down. Campaigning must also be reasonable and the interpretation of that is left to the discretion of the Elections Officer. Macleod explains, for example, that campaigning methods should not be based on resources unavailable to other candidates due to socioeconomic barriers. While he was able to catch and address most infractions, Macleod admits it was difficult to also keep up with the first year engineering students on Studley campus and recommends the addition of another person to the role to help coordinate between the Studley and Sexton campuses.

Asked if he would continue in the role, Macleod said he’d pass the torch onto someone new and has his eyes set on the position of Elections Officer for the Dalhousie Student Union itself. We thank Macleod for his hard work and wish him luck in his next venture.

RESULTS:

PRESIDENT:

IAN KERR

VP FINANCE:

SULTAN AL-JABOORI (FALL) & MARIE MASON (WINTER)

VP ACADEMIC:

JULIA SARTY

VP OUTREACH:

JENNIFER VIBERT (FALL) & WILLIAM LUTON (WINTER)

VP COMMUNICATIONS:

FARAH AFANI

VP INTERNAL:

GILLIAN STANTON

VP EXTERNAL:

WILLIAM MANN (FALL) & SIERRA SPARKS (WINTER)

VP SOCIAL:

ZOE SMITH