Nominations be open!!

ninty9er wrote: »

Seeing as you've probably seen more elections round here than most....go ahead.

Short answer:
Constitutional deadline is 6. Form was submitted before 6. End of.

Long answer:
When examining this issue there are two ways to look at it. One is where fairness (or perceived fairness) takes precedence, the other is where procedure takes precedent. Either view can come up with a single thing that totally overrides anything the other view can come up with.

So we can examine whether it's fair to let a candidate in the race if their form was in after a deadline. And whether it's fair on another candidate if their form was in before a deadline to let another candidate in. And whether or not it's fairest to the students to let them make the decision in an election, with the knowledge that one form was in on time and the other wasn't, assuming that to be the case.

That's where we'd look at the situation where a candidate has not done with is required of them purely with regard to natural justice. That's where we'd also ask questions like whether the returning officer has specifically declared nominations to be closed, all that kind of thing. The natural justice consideration would be extremely important in the event that a candidate had, for example, an ID number that couldn't be read among their nominees, which could quite easily happen and arguably would place the legitimacy of their candidacy at risk if it happened (as the nominee couldn't be verified from the form).

The second view is one of pure procedure: did any given candidate fulfil what was required of them in the nomination process? More to the point, did any candidate fail to fulfil that process? Because in a purely procedural view, those that fulfil the process are in, those that don't are out.

The trouble with a purely procedural view is that you have to be extremely anal about procedure from the administration side. There's no room for a judgement call whatever. Nonetheless, from a legal perspective it's cleaner and easier to define.

Looking at the first issue quickly: from a "fairness" point of view, it'd be a question of whether it would be most just to let a candidate with a form that was handed in late into the election or not (and I've heard a lot of contradicting stories about the circumstances of that specific case over the past few days).

But I don't have to consider the fairness issue and here's why: from a purely procedural point of view, the SU constitution deals with this specific issue in two ways: It defines the period of nominations as five university days (it specifically says "the nomination period for all Union elections, save Class Representative Elections shall be five university days"). It defines a university day as 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday, excluding holidays. Everyone got a copy of it in their election pack. It overrules all. Of all days, on the last day, forms have to be accepted till 6. No-one's disputing that the form was in before 6.

Hence I don't have to consider whether or not the returning officer officially closed nominations and made such a declaration, whether or not precise procedure was followed on the receipt of nominations, whether or not would be fair to candidate 1, candidate 2, students or the world at large to let candidate 2 in or out, the consultation process between the returning officer and the campaign managers on the implementation of regulations, the discussion re what I'm informed was the acceptance of the form by the returning officer, what I'm informed was the overruling by the chair of the electoral & referenda board. None of that stuff. Constitution says 6, that was approved by a quorate general meeting and stays in place until overruled by another quorate general meeting or a quorate referendum. End of story.

Like it or not, and some of you do and some of you don't, the overriding deadline is 6. That makes it a valid candidacy without having to bother considering anything else. I don't like having to draw a sharp conclusion like this - looking at the list above, there are a total of 12 names on it and I know 10 of them pretty well to the level where I'd consider them friends. Nevertheless, it was still in before 6. The best thing the ERB could do at this point is recognise that the 6pm deadline was fulfilled, it overrides any restriction they may have wanted to impose on the Friday evening when everyone wanted to go home, and everyone can get on with things for the election, which is more important than this kerfuffle.


edit: hadn't seen Aoife's post before posting the above. It took me longer to type than I'd have liked.

rmacm wrote: »

That for me sums up about everything that's wrong with politics (perhaps this is going to sound naieve but so be it) anyone who'd do something like that is probably not worth voting for, I know I certainly wouldn't vote for them.

The above isn't supposed to reflect on anyone running in the election btw.

I'm pretty sure that the PPO isn't going to have 'an administration' as such. And exactly what kind of senior position do you think would be on offer? Someone uninvolved could come forward and offer to pretend it was them in exchange for a packet of fruits loops and a promise of a go on the PPO twirly chair.