The graduate student senator election has to be rerun after an AMS error caused results to be nullified by UBC.
AMS Elections Administrator Sansian Tan said due to an oversight error, an incorrectly formatted ballot was sent to students for the graduate student senator race. There were two seats open for election, but the ballot only allowed eligible student voters to select one candidate for election.
AMS Elections oversees the Senate elections voting — such as for faculty-specific student senators and student senators-at-large — on UBC’s behalf.
Tan said the UBC Elections Office and AMS Elections deemed this error “significant enough” to void and re-run the race. The elected student senator, Yi Chen, will not retain her position and will be subject to run again.
“The results of this particular race have been nullified to make sure that voter integrity is intact,” said Tan.
This year’s general election saw a 17.4 per cent turnout. Tan said though the “overall attention to elections season” helped with turnout, the graduate student senator race is not directly overseen by the AMS, so the student engagement of this ballot “depends on how the constituency and the candidates interact with each other.”
Tan said AMS Elections will work closely with UBC to review the ballot for accuracy before it reaches students. As the Senate positions start on April 1, the proposed new voting period will start March 21 at 12:01 a.m. and end March 28 at 8 p.m.
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