The current VUWSA by-election may be in breach of the constitution and therefore totally invalid. A letter sent to VUWSA’s returning officer by incessant VSM pusher Peter McCaffrey points out that under Schedule 2, Point 24, B, (Page 23) the option of “no confidence” can only be used “In the event that there is only one candidate, for any one of these positions, or only five candidate[s] for the executive”.
McCaffrey, whose email to the returning officer can be found here, is adamant the rules have been breached and the election should be invalidated.
“Why do we force students to pay millions of dollars to student associations, when they can’t even follow their own constitution and hold legitimate elections?” McCaffrey harped on.
VUWSA President Jasmine Freemantle said “there is a procedure in place as underlined in the VUWSA constitution. Any complaints concerning VUWSA elections are handled by he returning officer and or election committee as is appropriate.” Freemantle felt it inappropriate to comment further on the issue because of this and being unaware of the challenge tll Salient informed her.
Jeremy Greenbrook-Held, former president and member of the VUWSA election committee said: “It has unintentionally happened in the past and wasn’t a problem at the time. It’s a crude interpretation of the constitution.”
The instance which Greenbrook-Held cites was the 2004 election where no one lost to No Confidence.
The last person to lose to No Confidence was, coincidentally, Jasmine Freemantle in 2002 when she ran for 2003 Welfare Vice-President.
Below is a screenshot of how one student voted.