I take issues with the AUS Elections

Hey if you’re in arts, you can vote in the AUS elections right now. Vote until the 30th. The polling booths are supposed to be on either entrance of the SUB and somewhere in Buchanan, 10-5pm.

Also, since the people running the elections did not specify how many people you can vote for in some positions, here are the specifics: 11 General Officers, and 7 AMS reps (correct me if I’m wrong)

As to their write ups and who’s running – there are no write ups and a list of who’s running is also not on the AUS official website. But there’s an unofficial list here (see two posts down). So I guess, vote for your friends? What an….. interesting way to run an election. If you have Facebook you have to join “Aus Elections” (and they have to approve you as a friend) in order to see the write ups of some candidates.

I asked Stephanie Ryan (AUS President incumbent) where I could receive the information on where the polling booths would be, here was her reply:
“i’m not sure, but i do know that the candidates will be able to tell their friends where to go and that we’ve hit 3 major entrance-ways and that our booths will be well-labelled, so in 5 days most Arts students will probably stumble across a voting booth at at least one point in time”

While I agree that a lot of arts students will be able to see the booths, I don’t think this reliance on having the candidates tell their friends where to go vote is a smart idea for two reasons:
1) The campaign period ended on the 23rd before voting began on the 26th, and the information on ballot locations wasn’t available until the 25th. So you would technically be breaking the rules on campaigning unless you contacted every single friend on a “private conversation” basis to let them know where they could vote.
2) Relying on “telling your friends” skews the elections once again towards voting for your friend. Especially since the write-ups of candidates are not even accessible unless you check Facebook and memorize who you want to vote for and then try to remember the list of people at the poll.