SU Elections

monument

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

The meeting is happening on Tuesday morning, before polls open, to ensure that polling goes ahead as planned and the countless hours and skipped lectures that people have put in (without pay and with little thanks) doesn't all count for nothing.

Maybe the polling won't go ahead, that's up to the class reps, isn't it? Or is it?

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

You guys all go on and on about the Union and how it's "their job" pretending as though they're rich fatcats who don't care about the students.

For some of them, it is their job and they do get paid for it.

For anybody where it is not their job, they have volunteered and they can leave if they want.

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

There's a reason this wasn't distributed to the students yet. The SU hasn't had any legal consultation about any of this. It's still all up in the air.

If that is the case they should not be emailing class reps about it.

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

Are you seriously telling me you want to have polling postponed because of this stupid bureaucracy? You don't want to be able to vote because you weren't officially told about some odd behavior ?

<mod snip>

If it's just stupid bureaucracy, why bother having such rules?

andrew163

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

You guys all go on and on about the Union and how it's "their job" pretending as though they're rich fatcats who don't care about the students. There's a reason this wasn't distributed to the students yet. The SU hasn't had any legal consultation about any of this. It's still all up in the air. You really think they're going to go posting all-student mails about some guy?!

<mod snip>

It's really easy to check if a person is a DCU student. You can do it from any computer connected to DCU's wired network. I'm not sure if you can check if they're *currently registered*, but I'm sure ISS would provide the facility to the SU if they asked nicely. But that's a side thing, I don't think anyone's condemning them for not checking everybody.

OrionsBelt

why go through the hassel of bothering to go lectures, or the college at all, if your not registered as a student? you'd not have anything at the end of it

Cid-Highwind

thusspakeblixa wrote: »

Also- how the hell is all this only coming out now? It's the weekend before elections ffs. Should the proposer not be checked when, y'know, the proposal is made?

When I was returning officer (three years ago) we checked out several of the people listed on nomination forms. I didn't check on anyone I thought I knew was a student, it just didn't seem necessary. In light of this I'm sure in future it will be checked in greater detail.

Obviously a meeting needs to be called to decide how this affects the nominations of these candidates, but, they should be allowed to run and this should not affect anyone's votes (assuming of course they had genuine reason to think this person was a student). When I ran for election I asked whoever was around (that I thought was a student of course) to sign the form. The process of being nominated by someone is an exercise mainly in filling out paperwork that serves no real purpose - can you see someone who couldn't get five students to sign a form running for election?

monument wrote: »

Maybe the polling won't go ahead, that's up to the class reps, isn't it? Or is it?

No, polling must go ahead. Either these candidates will be allowed to stand or will not.

gizmo

Edgar Penzig wrote: »

The meeting is happening on Tuesday morning, before polls open, to ensure that polling goes ahead as planned and the countless hours and skipped lectures that people have put in (without pay and with little thanks) doesn't all count for nothing.

Indeed, if you'll read my follow up post above you'll see that I corrected myself, yet am still unhappy with the timing.

Please don't take any of that as some sort of put down for the role or the time put in on my part. I dedicated quite a large amount of time to such positions in DCU and am well aware of the effort needed to do so while working on a degree.

As for your strong wording again, let me be very clear, if you (or anyone else) call this person a criminal or some sort of other libelous term again you'll be flat out banned from this forum.

Edgar Penzig

gizmo wrote: »

As for your strong wording again, let me be very clear, if you (or anyone else) call this person a criminal or some sort of other libelous term again you'll be flat out banned from this forum.

Actually, would you mind banning me? I'm sick of getting e-mails roping me back into this web of insanity and nonsense and I'm not bothered fiddling around with settings to try and change that.

snowcrazie

Obviously it's a unfortunate situation but I don't think it could be referred to as criminal. Just a case of someone with an overactive imagination and too much time on their hands. Anyone who knows the individual will know he rarely thinks before he speaks/acts.

This couldn't possibly result in the candidates involved not being allowed run, it is in reality a administrative error/oversight. The fact that the council must vote, that doesn't necessarily mean its a huge issue. It simply means that certain procedures have to be followed. It is clear that the candidates did nothing wrong but trust a fellow student, one heavily involved with all aspects of student life (amazingly so for a non-student ... though one could say they were living the dream).

And in all honesty 99% of the student population would have ignored/skimmed any mail sent regarding this issue as it does substantially change the position of any candidate.

lil_cain

phasers wrote: »

^ I would have thought it was pretty easy to check whether students existed or not.

Whether they existed or not, yes. The issue is that all of the regularly used tools to check whether someone is a student (like chairs have on their portal page, or the SPC have access to) make no distinction between student, and alumni.

Obviously in a perfect world, there'd be some way around this. To the best of my knowledge, this has never come up before however. I don't think anyone's ever impersonated a student w/r to matters like this.

Spoogle3000

andrew163 wrote: »

<mod snip>

but I'm sure ISS would provide the facility to the SU if they asked nicely. But that's a side thing, I don't think anyone's condemning them for not checking everybody.

there is a system that redbrick used to use that would do this. it can match the student with their student ID, can remember what it was called tho.....

thusspakeblixa

snowcrazie wrote: »

And in all honesty 99% of the student population would have ignored/skimmed any mail sent regarding this issue as it does substantially change the position of any candidate.

99% of class reps probably will ignore it. Look at the attendance for Union Council. I know there are a few good class reps but the majority dont seem to be arsed.

There is no excuse, in my view, for not informing the students at large directly.

Attol

Spoogle3000 wrote: »

there is a system that redbrick used to use that would do this. it can match the student with their student ID, can remember what it was called tho.....

This is gone.

Spoogle3000

oh, well if that was revived to be used by the election committee

johan

The electoral committee get access to the voting system, which is provided by ISS and is supposed to be able to tell if a student is a student, rather then an alumni, and prevents students from voting twice etc

Landa2

Generally (from personal experience, and im sure all previous RO's will agree) this system is not made available as early as the close of nominations, even in my particular circumstances where it had to be used twice in one year it had to be requested and setup/cleared twice..

Urizen

johan wrote: »

The electoral committee get access to the voting system, which is provided by ISS and is supposed to be able to tell if a student is a student, rather then an alumni, and prevents students from voting twice etc

It was presumably this system being prepared for the elections that led to the discovery, no?

Landa2

Urizen wrote: »

It was presumably this system being prepared for the elections that led to the discovery, no?

The system is a database of the 10,000 or so current students and whether they have voted or not, nothing more

Spoogle3000

Urizen wrote: »

It was presumably this system being prepared for the elections that led to the discovery, no?

i can only presume so, but if they do use it, why wasnt it used earlier?

Urizen

Landa2 wrote: »

The system is a database of the 10,000 or so current students and whether they have voted or not, nothing more

Hmmm, I see. Wondering how this person was found out so... I'm sure we'll find out Tuesday.

lil_cain

Spoogle3000 wrote: »

i can only presume so, but if they do use it, why wasnt it used earlier?

Because someone who wasn't a student nominating someone is pretty out there as a failure mode. And the Electoral Committee generally have a horrendous amount of work to do around election time, as well as all their usual college stuff and the like.

It's unfortunate that this happened, and I'm sure in future, they will be checking all the nominators. But, this is a volunteer committee, doing a very difficult job, under an enormous amount of pressure. Cut them a bit of slack.

OrionsBelt

can just anyone go to this meeting? i'm not a rep but this look like an interesting thing to see

dregin

tvservices wrote: »

Seen as I know the basic story, it is very entertaining to watch the suspense killing everyone else!! Sorry...:D

You clearly missed the post that outlined said story before it was edited. Are you actually in "TV Services"?? I'd be fairly worried that someone that mixes up "seen" and "seeing" has a place in the media.

Cid-Highwind

Landa2 wrote: »

Generally (from personal experience, and im sure all previous RO's will agree) this system is not made available as early as the close of nominations, even in my particular circumstances where it had to be used twice in one year it had to be requested and setup/cleared twice..

Yep, that's what I remember too. However, we got it when we told ISS we needed it, we could probably have got access earlier.

The system isn't important, staff can search for students etc. and these things could be checked out. The problem is that this is a scenario no one really considered.

This proposer/seconder nonsense serves no purpose anyway, and if there is to be a constitutional change it's removal should be examined.

myk

lil_cain wrote: »

It's unfortunate that this happened, and I'm sure in future, they will be checking all the nominators. But, this is a volunteer committee, doing a very difficult job, under an enormous amount of pressure. Cut them a bit of slack.

Not trying to **** stir, but when I was in DCU the electoral committee got paid an hourly rate for their work during election time. Has this been changed?

tvservices

dregin wrote: »

You clearly missed the post that outlined said story before it was edited. Are you actually in "TV Services"?? I'd be fairly worried that someone that mixes up "seen" and "seeing" has a place in the media.

Well that was embarrassing! I am not in the media side of tv services, thankfully as you just pointed out. ah well, must make a point of checking my grammer before posting. Thanks!!

Oh and not everyone saw the earlier posts!! People were asking so that's why i said it.

KenGriffin

Attol wrote: »

Yes. Terrible cover up there. God forbid people sleep or spend time with their families during holidays.

The details of what has been provided to the reps is so sketchy that it wouldn't be worth going to the classes with.

We don't even know what positions are involved - if it's Science Convenor [or something like that], it's irrelevant to my class as it's a postgraduate humanities class.

My own take is that a lot of reps won't be able to make the 9am meeting and that the SU should postpone the elections by a week and hold a proper Union council at a point where there will be more time for discussion.

The problem with the 9am meeting is that it essentially restricts the council's latitude in terms of throwing out the candidates for example because if it did that, the union has to reprint all the ballot papers.

To be honest, the SU should have checked their nominations far earlier. The current executive seems incapable of even running a piss-up in a brewery and this is the natural result.

The use of someone outside the student body on such papers shows contempt for the electoral process and is far from the minor issue that some on this board seem to think it is.

Those who engaged in such practices are unfit for office and should be excluded from the campaign. I suspect that that will not happen though.

myk

KenGriffin wrote: »

To be honest, the SU should have checked their nominations far earlier. The current executive seems incapable of even running a piss-up in a brewery and this is the natural result.

The Electoral Committee are independent of the SU Exec...unless something has radically changed in the SU constitution.

KenGriffin wrote: »

The use of someone outside the student body on such papers shows contempt for the electoral process and is far from the minor issue that some on this board seem to think it is.

Those who engaged in such practices are unfit for office and should be excluded from the campaign. I suspect that that will not happen though.

It is highly likely that the candidate in question didn't realise that one of their proposers was not a currently registered student.

cocoa

KenGriffin wrote: »

My own take is that a lot of reps won't be able to make the 9am meeting and that the SU should postpone the elections by a week and hold a proper Union council at a point where there will be more time for discussion.

It is my understanding that the elections are already scheduled as late as is allowed by the current constitution, so a postponement is highly unlikely.

KenGriffin wrote: »

The problem with the 9am meeting is that it essentially restricts the council's latitude in terms of throwing out the candidates for example because if it did that, the union has to reprint all the ballot papers.

I think it's reasonable to say they could cross out a portion of the currently printed papers, if it came to that.

KenGriffin wrote: »

To be honest, the SU should have checked their nominations far earlier. The current executive seems incapable of even running a piss-up in a brewery and this is the natural result.

As has been pointed out, there is a separate electoral committee and they have been incredibly busy without checking up on 54 students, many of which are faces they know and are always around the place, had no reason to think they weren't a student. On that note, the SU cannot run elections, you need a separate, hopefully impartial, body.

KenGriffin wrote: »

The use of someone outside the student body on such papers shows contempt for the electoral process and is far from the minor issue that some on this board seem to think it is.

Those who engaged in such practices are unfit for office and should be excluded from the campaign. I suspect that that will not happen though.

If it was deliberate, then you might be right, but from all I've seen, it was not. Quite frankly, I think the idea that anyone couldn't find three students to nominate them and so resorted to using a non student, who they knew wasn't a student, totally ridiculous. I have seen nothing that might suggest that, for the candidates, this was anything more than an accident. For the non student in question, that's a different matter, but not really one up for debate here.

As has been noted several times, this is not something anyone expected. Candidates were not explicitly warned to check that their proposers were currently registered students, the electoral committee was not warned (by the previous year's committee, for example) to check all proposers and they were certainly busy enough already.

lithiumoxide

tvservices wrote: »

Oh and not everyone seen the earlier posts!! People were asking so that's why i said it.

*saw

milkwine

KenGriffin wrote: »

The problem with the 9am meeting is that it essentially restricts the council's latitude in terms of throwing out the candidates for example because if it did that, the union has to reprint all the ballot papers.


The use of someone outside the student body on such papers shows contempt for the electoral process and is far from the minor issue that some on this board seem to think it is.

i agree it is not a minor issue but also i dont think it is anybodys fault apart from the non student and a dismissal of a candiadate from the running would be unfair.

if all this information bout the non student came out mid december and the position were all ready half way tru then they wouldnt dismiss and change the positions of the people.

it is very unfair how the actions of one person can ruin the campaign of some candidate. i know you have to look at the rules here but also think of the effort and money and determination of all the candiadate..

also i think that if a candiadate was dismissed and another one won becuase of this, they, themselves wouldnt feel lik they desearve or earn it and got the place becuase te majority liked their policies.

in the union concil i think they should take a human sensitive approach to thiss topic and really think of the impact of everyone before they make their descision.

QUOTE]

tvservices

lithiumoxide wrote: »

*saw

haha, aw, I give up!! thanks