The special election for the AMS VP academic and university affairs position has mostly moved online, due to the government-instituted COVID-19 restrictions.
Ahsan Sahibzada, the chief electoral officer, said the AMS is moving forward with the election, but they won’t be having any in-person events.
“Pretty much the entire election [will] be online. We did have one in-person event planned but seeing the way how things are moving, we have decided to ... cancel the in-person debate,” he said.
The results party, which typically happens on the night the election results are announced, is also cancelled.
“Once voting closes, we will just announce the partial unofficial results and then the unofficial results and then they become official once Council has approved them,” Sahibzada said.
Campaigning will also be different for this election.
“If classes get suspended or moved online, essentially all of their campaigning would need to be held online or through any other in-person medium that they can think of which wouldn't really require a large gathering,” he said.
Sahibzada expressed concern that the referendum on the ballot won’t reach quorum due to a lack of in-person campaigning and events.
“In general, it will be interesting to see if you can reach quorum for that referendum, considering it’s a special election [and that] there is a possibility that there may not be opportunities for physical campaigning,” he said.
The timeline for the election remains the same. The campaign period for the special election will begin on March 16 at 12:01 a.m. and voting will take place from March 23 to 27.