Women candidates win all five available UTSU executive positions

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) has released the results of its 2021 spring elections for five of six available executive positions. Three of the races were uncontested, and all candidates elected were women.

The total voter turnout was 12.6 per cent, around the same as last year’s, which was 12.7 per cent. All of the executive candidate races notably had at least a 30 per cent abstention rate. 

No candidate was elected for the sixth executive position, vice-president public & university affairs, after the sole candidate, Micah Kalisch, dropped out of the race prior to the UTSU forum that took place on March 16. The position’s term begins May 1 and the vacancy must be filled later on, possibly with a by-election. 

Some academic directors and division directors were also elected. Full results are available on the UTSU’s Simply Voting website.

Results

For president, uncontested candidate Alexa Ballis won with 2,987 votes, or an approval rating of 86.8 per cent — not including abstentions. Ballis hopes to lobby the university for earlier exam schedules, implement monthly UTSU town halls for students, and increase the amount of COVID-19 and mental health resources available on the UTSU’s website. 

For the other uncontested elections, Fiona Reuter was elected vice-president operations and Reva Aggarwal was elected vice-president equity, both with similarly high approval ratings. 

Of the three candidates vying for vice-president student life, Maria Lin was elected. Nathan Ching was eliminated in the first round of the ranked ballot after receiving the fewest votes, and Lin had 50 more votes than Anusha Madhusudanan in the third round.

In the vice-president professional faculties race, students elected Ruoheng (Cathy) Wang, who received 27 more votes than Tiffany Tiu in the second round of the ranked ballot.

Aside from the candidate results, the UTSU also held two referenda, both of which passed. The first referendum that passed was a renewal of the University of Toronto Aerospace Team Innovation Fund fee of $2. 

The second was an increase to the fee for the student aid program, which offers different bursaries and grants to students, and was introduced during last year’s elections. This year’s referendum increased the fee from $1 to $2.