Hours after losing to team RWS by a single vote, AMS executive candidates team ACH requested a recount. Team Radcliffe-Wang-St. Clair was declared the winner shortly before 7 a.m. Thursday morning. RWS garnered 2,351 votes to ACH’s 2,350 in the second round of preferential voting in the recount the AMS election team called because the vote was so close.
To request a recount, a team must get 50 signatures and present them to the AMS elections office within 48 hours of the initial count.
According to AMS election policy, only one manual recount is permitted but because last night’s recount was conducted with the help of a computer program, policy allows for another manual count to be done.
As with Wednesday night’s count, each team brought five scrutineers to oversee last night’s ballot-counting. The student senator, the rector and politics professor Jonathan Rose were also present to help ensure fairness and objectivity.
ACH campaign manager Alvin Tedjo said the elections office knew of the team’s intentions to request the recount when they released the results Thursday morning.
“The elections team, as soon as they told the results, told us this was an avenue we could pursue.” He said the margin of victory is so small he and his team want to ensure the numbers are accurate.
“Either way it goes, we need to be sure.”
Presidential candidate Holly Archer said a recount would give her more confidence in the results.
“By the time someone sees something at six in the morning, you want to make sure fatigue didn’t play into it.”
AMS Information Officer Greg McKellar he was amazed by the results.
“I’m not aware of any election having been decided by one vote,” he said. “It’s an unbelievable occurrence, really.”
He said the voter turnout—40 per cent of eligible students—was also impressive.
“We can all agree that on a campus where you have to walk out of the way of a polling station, maybe that’s not good but comparatively it’s great.”
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.
