UTSC students have one less candidate to consider in this week’s executive elections. Martine Lee was disqualified on Feb. 2 for an “inaccurate nomination form.” Lee was sent a late notification of disqualification and prohibited from appealing. She was running for vice president of students and equity.
To be nominated, each candidate needs a minimum of 25 student signatures. Lee got 25 signatures, but one of her signees had dropped courses. UTSC’s chief returning officer, Hamoon Yousefzadeh, issued a notice of disqualification after a search through ROSI showed the student was no longer enrolled.
Lee said she was unaware of the situation and that the student in question felt dropping courses was a personal matter. “[But] they didn’t know they weren’t a student anymore [since] they were planning to take courses later,” she said. Lee did not reveal the student’s name.
The CRO is in charge of ensuring fair candidacy, acceptable campaigning and impartiality, and adherence to election policies. Yousefzadeh was hired as CRO at the beginning of the winter semester. In the fall semester he was the deputy returning officer, who assists the CRO.
The SCSU Elections Policy states that the CRO is meant to “ensure that each candidate is eligible for election within two business days following the deadline for nominations.” Lee was notified of her ineligibility more than five days after the nomination deadline.
According to Yousefzadeh, much of the elections policy is currently at the discretion of the CRO. “Voting changes from year to year,” he said. “[This year] two days was a little unreasonable.”
Yousefzadeh said the notification was delayed because of the referendum and impeachment proceedings of Zuhair Syed from the SCSU presidency. “This year it has been hectic so we’ve pushed [the notification] a bit further.”
Lee’s notice stated she was not entitled to an appeals process “since [she was] never a candidate to begin with.” Yousefzadeh placed the onus on Lee for “only inputting the minimum 25 names.” The Elections Policy does not have rules for her case and does not address an appeals process.
In other disqualification cases, the CRO uses his discretion and justifies his decision to the board. “In this case I didn’t use [my discretion …] it was [over] a technicality,” said Yousezadeh. He said Lee’s unusual case limits him from letting her go through usual appeals procedures.
Lee approached the chief of the Appeals Committee, Sara Bushara, who emailed her two colleagues regarding the matter. The committee decided Martine should not be disqualified.
After the committee’s email correspondence, a meeting took place last week between Lee, Yousefzadeh, Bushara, elections liaison Amir Bashir, and the student whose signature was ineligible. Yousefzadeh said Bushara agreed to uphold his decision after he explained it to her. Bushara could not be reached for comment.
Before nominations, Yousefzadeh held an all-candidates meeting to go through the rules and answer questions. Candidates were asked to review the policies on their own and email in any queries.
Maria Malik, running for the same position as Lee, said Yousefzadeh did a good job of explaining elections policies. But she added, “However, there was no mention of what would happen if there were any errors in the nomination form.” Malik said the nomination forms should have been checked before candidates were allowed to campaign.
Yousefzadeh will present a report on the elections to the board the Friday after Reading Week, two weeks after the elections are over and more than three weeks after Lee was disqualified. The board will then decide whether his decisions were acceptable.
SCSU executive elections take place this Wednesday to Friday, Feb. 10-12. The remaining candidates for VP students and equity are Zahra Murji, Chanile Vines, and Maria Malik.
The SCSU Elections Policy is available here.
