With a shorter campaign period and only two teams running for AMS executive, students can look forward to a more streamlined election campaign.
The campaign period begins today. It traditionally lasts two weeks, but has been reduced to 10 days this year. “That’s actually to standardize the campaign period,” said AMS Chief returning Officer Ilana Ludwin.
“There’s been some problems in the past few years with the referendum campaign period being shorter than the AMS campaign period.
“We’ve actually standardized it now so they both start [today].” The change means that candidates holding current AMS positions didn’t take leaves of absence until today, and were still in their positions during last night’s AMS assembly debate. Ludwin said this isn’t a conflict of interest.
“[The debate at aMS assembly] is a special debate,” she said. “It’s at assembly, so it’s not really an
official debate. The candidates are being called before assembly to demonstrate why they’re
good candidates. all six candidates will have to take a leave of absence starting today. With team CMM, Kingsley Chak is a student trustee, John Manning is the AMS food and services director and Julia Mitchell works for TaPS; with team TPC, Alvin Tedjo is Destinations assistant manager and is also taking a leave of absence from hosting “Campus Confidential” on CFRC, Joh Paterson is the AMS information Technology Officer and Liz Craig is CompSa president.
“[Thursday night] is really the kickoff, and [today is] when the actual campaign starts.” Ludwin said the purpose of the leave of absence is to create a level playing field. “it is an automatic process that
all candidates know they have to comply by; candidates have to take a leave of absence from everything.”
This year’s election marks the first two-team race since 2003, and the first since preferential balloting
was put in place in 2005. Ludwin said the change in balloting won’t change the election process.
“We’re not changing the official procedures when we’re only having two candidates,” she said. “it’s essentially the same as nonpreferential balloting—it will make absolutely no difference when it comes to tallying the votes. Ludwin said keeping voting procedures the same will reduce any confusion and ensure a standard system. “It doesn’t make much difference having only two teams running,” she said.
“it just means there are fewer people to logistically deal with. Fewer teams means votes are counted faster.” Ludwin said she’s happy with the current situation.
“Fewer teams might indicate smaller diversity and fewer options for voters. Some years this might have been a problem, but you won’t see it this year. We have two very strong teams.”
—With files from Anna Mehler Paperny
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