Presidential candidate Jialiang (Kevin) Hu was disqualified from the 2024 election for ten campaign violations, but was reinstated following his appeal hearing on Feb. 8
The McMaster Students Union presidential election came to a close on Jan. 25 and Jovan Popovic was announced as the winning candidate with 3620 votes. In this announcement from MSU Elections, candidate Jialiang (Kevin) Hu was noted as being disqualified from the running as a result of seven standard violations and three severe violations, which totalled in fines greater than half of the election budget.
A comprehensive list of Hu's violations and an official statement are available on the MSU Elections website.
"Due to the amount of fines exceeding half the spending limit, Jialiang (Kevin) Hu has been automatically disqualified under 7.12," reads a quote from MSU Elections on their website.
Rule 7.12 of the MSU presidential election rules states, "the Elections Committee shall automatically disqualify a candidate if they have accumulated fines exceeding half of the spending limit, accumulated seven severe and/or 14 standard violations, or if it finds that a candidate has deliberately sabotaged another candidate’s campaign."
Hu's violations included, but were not limited to, misrepresentation of campaign expense sheet, campaigning in group chats, forcing individuals to vote and contracting a vendor outside of the Underground printing service.
In an interview with the Silhouette on Feb. 10, Hu expressed his distaste with the elections protocol for making his disqualification public without undergoing the hearing first.
"It's an unofficial result at that moment. They still post it on Instagram, on their official Instagram. It is made public. The result being made public without going through a proper trial, without going through full investigation, without hearing the side of the candidates. . . you can see why it is very unjust," said Hu.
It's an unofficial result at that moment. They still post it on Instagram, on their official Instagram. It is made public. The result being made public without going through a proper trial, without going through full investigation, without hearing the side of the candidates. . . you can see why it is very unjust.
Jialiang (Kevin) Hu, presidential candidate, McMaster Students Union
Upon being notified of his disqualification, Hu decided to appeal all of his violations. The appeal hearing took place on Thursday, Feb. 8 and resulted in two of Hu's violations being overturned. The two violations that were overturned were violations 4.2, forcing individuals to vote, and 7.11.4, misrepresentation of expense sheet.
His disqualification was then retracted and his voting ballot opened and counted. An update was posted on the MSU elections Instagram with Hu's results included, but the result of the election did not change with the addition of Hu's ballot and Popovic will continue to serve as MSU president in 2024/2025 term.
When asked about his 4.2 violation by forcing individuals to vote, Hu responded that this claim was entirely unfounded and the evidence provided for this claim was unsubstantiated.
"In the meeting minutes provided, certain members of the committee said that they also witnessed this act [of forcing an individual to vote], but they don't provide any testimony. . .This is also a conflict of interest because you cannot be the witness, the jury, the judge and the executioner. This is like North Korea style trial," said Hu.
Despite Hu expressing his satisfaction with the hearing outcome on his Instagram story, with the caption, "justice has won at last", Hu also said in the interview that he felt all of his violations were unfounded and not based in adequate evidence.
"Those [violations] were the only two overturned, but I did provide concrete evidence regarding other ones. I don't understand why the committee didn't overturn these other violations. I'm slightly disappointed," said Hu.
Those [violations] were the only two overturned, but I did provide concrete evidence regarding other ones. I don't understand why the committee didn't overturn these other violations. I'm slightly disappointed.
Jialiang (Kevin) Hu, presidential candidate, McMaster Students Union
When asked about his violation for contracting vendors outside of the Underground, Hu stated that although he did utilize a third party service to print his lawn signs, he had received explicit permission from the Chief Returning Officer to campaign with lawn signs.
"So you're you are allowing me to use lawn signs, but the Underground doesn't make them, so where should I make them?" said Hu.
Hu currently serves as one of the engineering representatives in the Student Representative Assembly. When asked he was if he was planning on applying to other MSU roles in the future, Hu stated that he has considered running for a vice-president position, however he also added that he had concerns about the current practices within the MSU.
"I'm hesitant after what happened this time. . .personal bias and pettiness could get in the way of clear judgment for some people. We are all students who do not have a good understanding of the justice system and how elections are supposed to be run, how appeal process and the whole system is supposed to run," said Hu.
Hu concluded his interview by sharing some closing sentiments about the MSU electoral process being flawed.
"[MSU] elections are more like high school elections. It's more about how many friends you have, how many people will like you, rather than if your policy will actually benefit the student population. Despite being in university, it is still like high school. Favouritism still overwhelms rationality," said Hu.
With Hu's appeal hearing coming to a close, the 2024 presidential election results are now official and Popovic will begin his second term on May 1.
Graphic by Sukaina Imam
In recent years, questions of bylaw enforcement have been at the forefront of the McMaster Students Union presidential elections. While most students may not concern themselves with the details of election rules, past years’ rulings show us that while infractions may seem minor, enough violations may cast the integrity of the election into question.
In the 2018 election, the elections committee voted to disqualify two candidates, Rabeena Obaidullah and MSU president Ikram Farah.
According to the Jan. 25 elections committee meeting minutes, Obaidullah’s disqualification resulted from an accumulation of bylaw infractions, including campaigning in closed Facebook groups, using the McMaster logo in promotional material and misrepresenting expenses.
At the first elections committee meeting, Farah received fines for rule violations but was not disqualified. However, after another candidate brought forward additional complaints against her, the elections committee reconvened and voted to disqualify Farah due to the repeated nature of rule violations.
Both candidates made appeals to overturn their disqualifications. The MSU electoral appeal board determined that the violations did not harm the integrity of the election and therefore reinstated both candidates, allowing Farah to win the election.
A candidate’s campaign team consists of MSU members that actively campaign on their behalf.
Campaign team members must be MSU members, which means that part time students, graduate students, potential students, and community members are not able to publicly voice support for presidential candidates.
According to the MSU elections department, rules regarding campaign team members exist to monitor campaign activity so that individuals and groups cannot use their monetary resources or positions of power to unduly influence the results of the election.
The presidential election rules state that a candidate is responsible for the actions of their campaign team members, and can be fined, and in some cases disqualified, for actions taken by their team members.
A consistent question that has come up throughout elections committee meetings and appeals processes was whether it is the responsibility of the candidate or the elections department to ensure that both team members and the larger student population are abiding by the campaign rules.
According to the presidential election regulations, it is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure that their campaign team plays by the rules. In practice, however, this can be complicated.
Given that the elections committee can retroactively add people from outside the campaign team if they appeared to be publicly supporting the candidate, it is not always enough for the candidate to educate their campaign team about the election rules.
In the appeals process, a candidate petitioned against the fines that they had received, stating that it was unfair to be held responsible for violations outside of their control.
At the March 11 Student Representative Assembly meeting in 2018, former vice president (Administration) Shaarujaa Nadarajah stated that there could be more formalized rules to address how to respond when candidates rectify issues, especially when violations are committed by non campaign team members.
Additionally, the rulings of the elections committee regarding campaigning of non team members have differed year to year.
In 2016, a non-team member used the MSU logo to post on behalf of Mike Gill, one of the presidential candidates. The use of the MSU logo in campaign material is prohibited, as is campaign material released by a non team member. Since Gill took the steps to have the post taken down, the charges were dismissed.
However in 2018, individuals who were not on Farah’s campaign team posted endorsements on Snapchat and Instagram stories, both of which were not permitted for promotion. In contrast to the 2016 decision, the individuals were retroactively added to the campaign team and the candidate was subsequently fined.
The restriction of involvement of individuals from outside the campaign team was criticized during the appeals process during the 2018 election. A candidate expressed that public support from people from outside the campaign team meant that students who had never before been involved in elections were getting engaged.
The rules for this upcoming election seem to provide more leeway for involvement of non campaign members through the introduction of “campaign supporters” who show support for a candidate but do not belong to a campaign team.
However, campaign supporters still have to be MSU members. Additionally, the elections committee can determine that a campaign supporter is in fact a campaign representative.
A candidate is also subject to receiving a fine for a serious violation if their campaign supporter engages in harassment. Given these restrictions, it remains to be seen whether the addition of the “campaign supporter” category will increase opportunities for involvement in elections.
Since 2016, the elections committee has voted to disqualify three different presidential candidates for violating the election rules. One disqualification occurred in 2016 and two occurred in 2018.
Violations ranged from campaigning in Facebook groups, to bad taste violations to misrepresentations of expenses.
The electoral appeal board voted to overturn all three disqualifications because the integrity of the election had not been sufficiently affected, thus reinstating the candidates.
The original decisions to disqualify candidates resulted from the accumulation of standard and severe violations that were deemed to violate the integrity of the election.
The integrity of an election is difficult to quantify, and has therefore been left up to the interpretation of the election committee. Since the elections committee is made up of SRA members, there is a high rate of turnover, meaning that the interpretation of rules can vary significantly from year to year.
This year, a new clause has been added to the election rules that removes some ambiguity from the disqualification process. Section 7.12.1. outlines conditions under which a candidate will be automatically disqualified.
These violations include deliberately sabotaging another candidate’s campaign, accumulating fines over half the spending limit, or accumulating five severe or 15 standard violations.
Had this rule been in place last year, two candidates had enough violations that they would have been automatically disqualified.
While the 2019 bylaws clear up some of the uncertainty that existed last year regarding what constituted cause for disqualification, larger issues surrounding the rules and the appeals process remain.
During the March 7 electoral appeal board meeting Farah criticized the validity and justice of the appeals process. She stated that she had not been given the opportunity to respond to appeals made against her. Additionally, she criticized the appeals process for being non transparent and for demonstrating conflicts of interest.
Additionally, during the 2018 appeals process, multiple candidates expressed concern that candidates could use the complaints process as a tactic to get their competition disqualified. Given that the 2019 rules provide grounds for automatic disqualification, this may remain a problem.
The presidential election bylaws are meant to ensure an equal playing field for all candidates, while also ensuring that rules are not so restrictive that they discourage participation. In the upcoming election, both candidates and the elections department will be held to a high level of scrutiny to ensure that rules are being publicized, interpreted, and enforced fairly.
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This is an evolving story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
As McMaster lay awake in anticipation following the closing of the polls on Thursday, Jan. 28, it would have sounded absurd to suggest that the most newsworthy item would not be the identity of the winner of the 2016 MSU Presidentials. Yet the announcement on the MSU website released on Friday at 3:45 a.m. was a collection of both the stunning and the improbable.
Jonathon Tonietto, one of the more unorthodox candidates, finishes second.
Mike Gill, arguably one of the frontrunners in this year's race, finishes as an outside third.
The referendum on VP elections at-large fails to pass by a margin of 0.3 percent, or approximately 20 votes.
But by far, the most startling turn of events: the disqualification of Sarah Jama from the Presidential candidacy for what are described as "excessive campaign violations."
Did someone mention that Justin Monaco-Barnes is the new MSU President-Elect?
These unexpected results are perhaps a fitting end to one of the most tense and aggressive campaign periods in recent memory. Anonymous accusations of sexual and physical assault against a candidate surfaced on social media, which prompted both an official response by the Women and Gender Equity Network and a discussion on these accusations during the Student Representative Assembly meeting on Sunday, Jan. 25.
In many ways, these events had a significant impact on the tone of the election, and according to a Facebook post by Sarah Jama, these allegations played a role in Jama's disqualification.
Based on the adjudication from Elections Committee, Jama's campaign committed two severe violations outlined in section 7.9 of the 2016 MSU Presidential Rules. As explained by Chief Returning Officer Priya Gupta, a severe violation is anything that involves "something that might harm the integrity of the election." She also explained that any severe violation is required to involve a discussion on disqualification by Elections Committee.
The first involves an infraction of rule 7.9.1 for exceeding the spending limit of $450 as outlined in rule 6.1, and the second is an infraction of rule 7.9.5, involving the use of material that is considered to be in "bad taste," defined in rule 2.1 as that which "shall include but not be limited to material that is determined by the Returning Officers to be: sexist, racist, heterosexist, homophobic, pornographic, obscene, derogatory or prejudicial to any member of the McMaster community."
The recent Facebook post by Jama on her campaign page confirms that the alleged incident in violation of rule 7.9.5 "Bad Taste" was in part a retweet on Jama's Twitter account of a user that accused one of the candidates of sexual assault.
While many have speculated on the outcome of the election had Jama not been disqualified, the results of the ballots will remain confidential during the appeals period in order to preserve the integrity of decisions made by Elections Committee.
According to Jama, the volunteer responsible as well as another individual involved were removed from her team following the incident. While rule 7.4 states that "candidates are responsible for their campaign and representatives," it later states that "candidates are required to notify the Returning Officers immediately if they believe they could be unfairly penalised for another individual's actions.” In her post, Jama asserts that she removed the tweet within “ten minutes” and that she “talked to the [Chief Returning Officer] right afterwards to make sure [her] response was correct.”
Currently, Jama has announced her intent to appeal the disqualification; her post on her Facebook page has specifically contested the severe violation for exceeding the spending limit, denouncing the violation as untrue. According to Jama, the decision was based on a screenshot of a conversation that indicated she had paid $500 for her website, but Jama has declared she has evidence that proves otherwise.
While many have speculated on the outcome of the election had Jama not been disqualified, the results of the ballots will remain confidential during the appeals period in order to preserve the integrity of decisions made by Elections Committee.
"I cannot reveal that information, only I know that information; even EC doesn't know," said Gupta.
"The reason being is that we do not want to bias EC's decisions, especially since we are in an appeals period. I think knowing that information might bias the people on the committee to one way or another."
Gupta also explained that the minutes for Elections Committee's meeting will be publicly shared as soon as they can be made coherent and presentable by Administrative Assistant Victoria Scott, the transcriber.
"There are seven hours' worth of meeting minutes," explained Gupta. "I'm hoping and aiming for them to be released by Monday or Tuesday."
"I know students are a little agitated and upset that the meeting minutes have not come out, but I just ask them to be patient and to respect the time. It is a human process."
The appeals period will extend until Friday, Feb. 5 and all candidates will have the opportunity to voice any concerns. In the meantime, students will be left to speculate on the results of a remarkably contentious election.
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