AMS wants to end the “popularity contest” and elect future executives based on a candidate’s platform.
Following the second Assembly of the year, the AMS has revised its Election Policy to eliminate the requirement that executive candidates collect student signatures to appear on the ballot for the upcoming election cycle.
The Elections Policy Review Committee brought forward the recommendation. Motion 4, titled That AMS Assembly approve the amendments to the Election Policy, as presented in Appendix B, was moved by AMS President Jana Amer and seconded by AMS Vice-President (University Affairs) Alyssa Perisa and passed unanimously at the Sept. 29 AMS Assembly meeting, ending the requirement for signatures.
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Amer explained in an interview with The Journal the decision behind scrapping the signature requirement to eliminate social barriers and create a fairer, more accessible path for all students to run for executive positions, with the Assembly now having the decision-making power over who will be on the ballot.
The Elections Policy Review Committee, which brought forward the recommendation, was formed by student leaders who have run in elections, as well as various members from the AMS’s civics affairs team and judicial team, who have all taken part in running for elections, according to Amer. The committee was created over the summer to re-evaluate election structures. The committee was dissolved at the AMS Assembly on Sept. 29 after completing its summer evaluation.
According to Amer, the revised process, while the process remains essentially the same, only the candidate vetting is now handled by the AMS Assembly via a ratification assembly. Candidates must now present a five-minute pitch, where Assembly will then vote to approve their nomination by a majority of 50 per cent plus one. Only those who have been ratified are eligible to campaign and appear on the ballot.
Last school year, candidates seeking to run for AMS executive positions were required to get 125 signatures to qualify for the election. That number had already been reduced from the previous year, when candidates were required to have 300+ signatures before being eligible to run, Amer told The Journal.
Amer’s confident that the ratification process offers a more meaningful gauge of candidates than signatures could.
“The ratification assembly is going to be that kind of check mark because they will be expected to come with a platform […] what their goals are, what they’re looking to do, how that timeline is going to look like for them.” Amer emphasized that the signature requirement presented several issues. “Nomination signatures never seemed to be a proper marker of the legitimacy of candidates,” she said. “[Candidates] weren’t even allowed to communicate their goals. You weren’t allowed to talk about literally anything you wanted to do other than ask people that you know to sign this letter.”
According to Amer, the shift is also a step toward making student leadership more accessible, allowing for a better evaluation of the students running. “It required them [students] to be extroverts and it required them to be people that have pretty large social networks,” she said, “It’s a lot better to assess our students and potential based on their platform.”
She also pointed to an issue of “signature fatigue,” when students are constantly being asked to sign various nomination forms for AMS execs, referenda, and club elections, leading to confusion about whether they were voting or just signing. Amer emphasized that the change isn’t set in stone. The AMS plans to monitor the upcoming election cycle to evaluate how the new system plays out.
Tags
AMS, AMS Assembly, Election Policy, ratification
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