An outdated voters list and a lack of personal training from the current Chief Elections Officer (CEO) are behind the abrupt end to the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) 2022 Spring Elections ballot, according to SUS President Dayle Balmes.
On Monday, March 21, SUS sent an email to students telling them the ballot that had been released for its election had ended due to errors with the ballot. The ballot was up again by Wednesday morning, around 40 hours after SUS announced the mistake.
Balmes said that there were two main errors in the ballot. “The voting list was inaccurate so the ballot was [only] accessible to second years and above,” said Balmes. “So first years were not allowed to vote.”
Another error, Balmes explained, was that legal names were used in the ballot email rather than preferred names. He noted that the previous CEO made active efforts to prioritize the use of preferred names.
Balmes said that the SUS began drafting its spring 2022 election ballot around early March, just after the AMS Elections Committee gave them access to their ballots.
Based on the training that he received from the former CEO who left the AMS last fall, Balmes assumed the SUS could proceed with finalizing and releasing the ballots after receiving access. The former CEO requested termination back in November after conflict with the AMS.
“We assume[d] that the training we have received was adequate to release the ballot,” Balmes said. It was not until after the ballots were released that the SUS realized the ballots were invalid.
“We also asked once more when we can get the ballot up again,” said Balmes. “The CEO said if [we] send over the segmentation form, they will get it done in the next couple of days.” A segmentation form is used to determine who can vote for what positions.
Balmes said he was concerned about the lack of personal training from the current CEO Shania Muthu.
“I talked to other [constituency] presidents about receiving any training personally from [the current CEO] and most of them said no,” said Balmes. “There may be errors in [other] election ballots as the most recent training we all received was from the previous CEO.”
Despite the issue with elections this year, SUS will be giving out free merch to incentivize people to vote. “We will be giving out some pens, tote bags and clipboards,” said Balmes. “We decided to extend the voting period to [March] 29."
At the most recent AMS Council meeting, Muthu said the CEO job was overwhelming, and suggested splitting the CEO’s role up in future years.
She did not respond to multiple requests for comment.