Shaking up the system... sort of

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After the assembly of an ad hoc committee last summer and a public referendum during this year's Presidential elections, the beginning of some changes have finally come for the McMaster Students Union's Vice-President elections process.

The Student Representative Assembly ratified several of these changes on March 6 following some slight revisions to the new policies brought forward by Miranda Clayton, the Operations Commissioner of the SRA.

This shift is a result of some of the dissatisfaction with the internal voting process, both inside and outside of the SRA. In January 2016, a general referendum to move VP elections at-large failed to reach the required two-thirds majority by about 20 votes.

One of four major changes includes the decision to elect candidates in a semi-open ballot. While voting will remain private during the meeting, each SRA member's vote will be released in the meeting minutes, with the goal of improving transparency.

“The SRA should ideally be acting as an electoral college, meaning that they should be gathering as much feedback from their constituents as possible,” said Clayton.

The assembly also approved a long-overdue change to the votes of SRA members who run for a position on the Board of Directors. Any VP candidate that is serving as an SRA member will now be required to abstain during the voting period.

This was based on several recommendations that the VP ad hoc committee made over the summer. For a decision made by a group of less than 40 students, this is an important revision for those who don’t hold a seat on the SRA when they run for a position.

While internal pressures and politics will remain, it's a welcome change for students who want to burst the “MSU bubble.”

“A lot of the time, the older SRA members know somebody who's running,” said Clayton, discussing some of the implicit and explicit pressures.

“So new SRA members will get a message that's like, 'Oh, you should vote for this person, because I know they're the most experienced.' But it doesn't really give new SRA members a chance to really critically think for themselves.”

Said Clayton, "I don't think this cultural shift will happen overnight, but I do think it'll happen over time."

The other two changes stem from one of the major internal complaints from last year's VP elections, whose meeting extended to 22 hours, an enormous barrier for students trying to remain fair and engaged during the whole process.

Based on this feedback, the policies have outlined a shift towards a debate-style format amongst candidates, as well as a significant reduction in time allotted for VP presentations.

Clayton explained that this helps in fixing a great deal of redundancy, as all VP candidates spend a significant amount of time meeting each new SRA member beforehand.

The Speaker is also elected during the same meeting as the VPs, and the changes will also be reflected in the time allocated to Speaker candidates. Current MSU Speaker Inna Berditchevskaia explained that this will also help shift the focus away from their platforms, which is less important than for the VPs.

“[The Speaker's] platform isn't quite as important as how [they] handle a question period," she wrote in an online conversation.

"I think the biggest concern was just that this is the same meeting as VPs."

With all of these changes, there is the hope that more students will engage with an organization that has been criticized for being too insular.

Asked on her thoughts, Clayton said, “I would have preferred it was at-large, but I think given the circumstances this is the best we could do, and I am happy with these changes.”

“The final voting power is not in the hands of students, which is what I would have liked instead, but if we start this cultural shift now ... I am really interested to see where this goes.”

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