On March 4, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) announced the results of the union’s spring elections. This will determine the union’s leadership for the 2025–2026 academic year, once the Board of Directors (BOD) ratifies the result this month.

Voters elected Melani Vevecka as president, beating out Paul Gweon with 57.8 per cent of the vote. 37.3 per cent of voters abstained in the presidential vote. 

For the vice-president (VP) positions, students re-elected Elizabeth Shechtman as VP finance and operations, Damola Dina as VP public and university affairs (VP PUA), Sammy Onikoyi as VP equity, Aliyah Kashkari as VP student life, and re-elected Erica Nguyen as VP professional faculties.

The voting period ran from February 25 at 9:00 am until February 28 at 5:00 pm. Within the voting period, 5153 students casted their ballots online — a voter turnout of 12.5 per cent among those eligible to vote. This was a 0.5 per cent decrease from the approximate 13 per cent of eligible students who cast their ballots in last year’s election.

Referenda and the board of directors

In this election, four referendums were put forward to students: three external levies from Bikechain, Regenesis U of T, and the U of T Aerospace Team, and the union’s internal Orientation levy. In January, The Varsity reported that the union approved three levies for the elections: two external levies from Bikechain and Regenesis U of T as well as the union’s internal Orientation levy. 

The Varsity was unable to confirm when the fourth levy was added. 

After a campaign filled with “Pikchu” — a mascot parody of Pikachu from Pokemon — roaming around the UTSG campus on a bike and staging an arrest from Campus Safety, Bikechain’s levy was approved with 62.2 per cent of the vote. Students also approved Regenesis U of T’s levy with 64.1 per cent of the vote. 

The UTSU Orientation levy failed with 36.2 per cent of the vote, and the U of T Aerospace Team levy failed with 39.6 per cent of the vote. 

10 students ran for Directory at Large of the UTSU Board of Directors (BOD): Pranav Chaturvedi; Daisy Zhao; Wolfgang van Gulik; Eli Miller-Buza; Alice Ferguson-O’Brien; Helia Maleki; Eva Karulina; Ashlyn Lu; Ron Ulitsky; and Jessica Vertlib secured the 10 spots available.

The current BOD will determine whether to ratify the election results at its next meeting, which will take place sometime in March. 

Email concerns and demerit points

During the campaign period, students from Woodworth College began to notice emails from a familiar face — Woodsworth College Student Association (WCSA) president and UTSU presidential candidate Paul Gweon. However, the email was not shared with students outside of Woodsworth College. 

In an interview with The Varsity, Haadiya Usman, a fourth-year life sciences student, took notice of these emails on both her U of T email and her personal email —  an email she never uses for U of T-related purposes — and raised them to the UTSU’s Chief Returning Officer (CRO). 

In the email obtained by The Varsity, Gweon wrote to Woodsworth students that “I’m the only candidate with the experience and leadership skills to turn around the UTSU” and that “I’m running for to be your President so I can hold the UTSU accountable, boost student engagement, and implement my plan for actionable change that you can measure.” The email also reminded students twice to vote. 

“I was a little concerned about my personal address being used, and I talked to a couple friends, and they also received emails to their personal email addresses,” said Usman.

Usman previously worked at the WCSA, and claims that Gweon used his position as WCSA president to access students’ records in order to email them about his campaign. 

In an email obtained by The Varsity, the Elections Team wrote to Usman that “following our investigation, we have issued 10 demerits to [Gweon] as a result of this violation.” The UTSU website lists that Gweon’s 10 demerit points resulted from a violation of an elections code that bars candidates from using “private or confidential information of an eligible voter” without the voter’s expressed consent. 

The Elections Team initially advised Usman they did not find “sufficient evidence that [Gweon] would have access to [her] email through a breach of privacy,” but rather determined that her email was obtained by Gweon “…as a result of the two of you working together in other settings or associations.” 

“I was a little upset at first, because they took my report and were like ‘oh, well, you know he’s worked with you in the past, so that’s how he got your email address,’ But I know that I have not communicated with [Gweon] using my personal email address, and I told the CRO this, and I didn’t receive a response for a couple days,” she said. “I’m glad that they investigated further.”

UTSU President-elect Vevecka was issued two demerit points in February for failing to register all campaign materials with the CRO before being used during the election. 

Other candidates also received demerit points; VP PUA candidate Leli Gardapkhadze was issued 22 demerit points for campaigning on social media using “‘Shares’, ‘Reposts’, ‘Retweets’, and other equivalent forms of engagement, made with additional commentary,” 

Three candidates were disqualified in February for violating an elections code that prohibits them from forming “slates, parties, cross-Campaigning” or any other form of “mutual organization” between the candidates. 

UTSU Presidential Candidate Paul Gweon did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment in time for publication.