BREAKING: Frederick not impeached
In actuality, question on AMS tuition policy passed
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
12pm—AMS President Blake Frederick has not been impeached via referendum, according to a recent announcement by Elections Administrator Isabel Ferreras.
“The Elections Committee would like to announce a correction regarding the AMS Elections referendum questions,” said Ferreras in an e-mail.
She said that question two, “Do you support the removal of Blake Frederick from the office of President?” did not pass and did not reach quorum, with 3542 votes in favour and 1432 votes against.
However, question eight, “Should the AMS actively lobby for reduced tuition fees and increased government funding?” did reach quorum, and passed, with 3844 votes in favour, and 910 votes against.
“These election results show that although a number of students disagree with my approach, they agree that their student union should stand up for lower tuition,” Frederick told The Ubyssey. “I am proud that the AMS has finally been held accountable to the students through the referendum process. I look forward to transitioning the new executive and moving on to new opportunities.”
On Friday night at the Gallery, the Elections Committee announced to a packed house that only the question on the impeachment of Frederick passed. The announcement was received with raucous cheering. There were nine questions in total on the ballot.
The reason for the miscalculation, according to Ferreras, is the “reorganization of the output of the ballot referendum questions led to misappropriation of tabulated results.”
MIke Jan 30
I call Recount on all ballots.
This is shameful.
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Sue Jan 30
@MIke: calm down, mistakes happen. The results announced at the gallery aren’t final anyways.
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FOXTROT UBC Jan 30
WHAT IS THIS…. A JOKE?!?! WE DEMAND JUSTICE.
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Nick Jan 30
“although a number of students disagree with my approach”
An overwhelming majority of students disagreed with you, Blake. You cannot claim to have their support anymore.
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David Jan 30
Best quote ever: “Reorganization of the output of the ballot referendum questions led to misappropriation of tabulated results.”
Whatever that means.
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F Jan 30
I’m glad to hear this. While I do disagree with Frederick’s approach in the UN debacle, this question on the ballot was nothing but vindictive. I’m glad to see the tuition one passed.
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Anthony Jan 30
This is an embarrassment to the entire process. How could there possibly be a miscount on an online vote?
I hope there is some further accountability to this sham.
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Timmy Wong Jan 30
ISABEL-GATE!
come on…we already had UN-gate and cookie-gate in the past. Those led to some pretty interesting conversations.
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J Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Don’t forget Blake-gate. Or Lougheed-gate! In my opinion, the most epic of them all.
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TJ Jan 30
The question does not state what they mean by “actively lobby”. In a way, Blake was actively lobbying however his method was undemocratic…they should be more clear on this! Impeached vs. actively lobby…it contradicts itself. I think the people who voted against saw this and did not want to see the same stunt pulled via “actively lobby”.
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Mike Silley Jan 30
“Do you support the removal of Blake Frederick from the office of President?” did not pass and did not reach quorum, with 3542 votes in favour and 1432 votes against.”
What was quorum?
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J. Jan 30
The AMS is absurd. I’m going to lobby for lower AMS fees as obviously they are absolutely incompetent.
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Anonymous Jan 30
UBC Insiders posted a graph for the referendum results:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/ubcinsiders/files/2010/01/referendumbars.png
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ChrisS Jan 30
Question 2 received 4974 votes and did not meet quorum, but question 8 received 4754 votes and it did reach quorum?!? Can someone please explain this?
Whatever. Blake is gone. He didn’t even make it onto the Senate. And hopefully Tim’s delusions are gone after being beaten by even a joke candidate…
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Ubyssey Editor Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
ChrisS (and Mike),
Quorum for all questions requires 8% of AMS members to vote yes—in this case, 3716 yes votes.
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Clarke Jan 31
“These election results show that although a number of students disagree with my approach, they agree that their student union should stand up for lower tuition,” Frederick told The Ubyssey. “I am proud that the AMS has finally been held accountable to the students through the referendum process.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that that is the message you will take from this Blake. You seem to be very good at hearing what you want to hear.
First of all you should note that those who chose to vote on the question still voted 2.5 to 1 in favour of impeaching you, and that although the 8% quorum wasn’t met, 7.6% is not too shabby either.
However, that’s not even where your misinterpretation lies. See, I personally voted ‘no’ on this question not because I would like to see the AMS embarrass itself with outrageous lobbying methods, but because I don’t think that seeing you impeached at this point would help the AMS at all, and that it would have been a petty move. And I’d bet I’m not the only one.
So please, don’t walk away from this thinking that you’ve gained some kind of new mandate. We’re still embarrassed by what you did.
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Durgan Jan 31
One would think that such a massive idiotic error, followed by a false announcement to the Gallery crowd and multiple media outlets would warrant an apology.
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Goldman Reply:
January 31st, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I agree – getting all those people’s hopes up that the tyrant had finally fallen is totally inappropriate. But I wouldn’t hold her to account before having seen Blim Fru offer the only apology that matters – a resignation.
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Durgan Feb 3
I was glad to see my name in print, especially next to the the Colbertesque Foxtrot. I just wanted to retract the ‘idiotic’ part of my comment since interpreting the results can be confusing. Miss Ferreras (any relation any relation to Jesse btw?) seems to have done a good job otherwise, except letting a slate run for slfs, that was bullshit. In any case apparently the paper stopped posting her comments.
And I’m sure the UBC admin couldn’t be happier with the results: a whole batch of eager free-market neoliberal conformists at the helm of our little model democracy.
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