What do you think about the elections policy, as general MSU members, that the elections committee can levy fines and remove MSU previliges against you for expressing your opinions if they are in contravention of the MSU election committees policies?
MSU Policy on Elections Procedure: MSU By-law 10 - Elections
Election Committee Policy on Elections Procedure: 2007 MSU Presidential Election Rules
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3 comments:
Hello, sorry, just to clarify - i'm a bit confused about what parts of the policy can be used to do this to general msu members/students? Are you talking about By-law 10 - 11.11 in particular?
The election committee has made this statement at the last SRA meeting. I assume they base their authority off the following sections:
EC Policy
7. ELECTION VIOLATIONS
C. Any person found guilty of intentional damage to campaign materials may have any or all of their MSU privileges suspended or revoked, in addition to or in place of fines and/or disqualification.
SRA By-Law 10
11 VIOLATIONS, PENALTIES AND ENFORCEMENT
11.2 The Committee is responsible to ensure that all candidates, representatives and voters comply with this bylaw and any supplementary rules established by the Committee. Each candidate in an election and both sides in a referendum shall be provided with a copy of this bylaw, relevant campaign rules, and other materials prior to the opening of the campaign period;
11.3 Non-compliance with this bylaw or supplementary rules established by the Committee shall be viewed as violations. The Committee shall assess the nature of violations and may exercise any combination of the following:
11.3.1 levy a fine;
11.3.2 disqualify a candidate/side;
11.3.3 invalidate an election/referendum;
11.3.4 recommend to the SRA the suspension of MSU privileges;
11.7 All individuals shall be required to bear the onus of responsibility for their participation in a democratic process.
Of course, they can only reccomend to the SRA that privleges etc be removed. So if I went around tearing down posters I could have my MSU membership revoked. However, I imagine a far more likely scenario is a visit infront of judicial affairs. What concerns me more about the policy interpretation of the elections committee is that if I were to change my MSN name to say 'Support Candidate X!', that they think they have a jurisdiction in controlling that.
Thank you Action for answering! That does seem like the closest thing in the policy which could be used as a basis to limit student expression about the elections.
In order for the elections committee to support that statement with the policies they would have to claim that I am intentionally damaging campaigning materials by expressing my opinion about them.
That is really stretching what the policy says. If that is their interpretation of the policy it is completely unjustified for them to make that statement:
The only thing that I am intentionally damaging by expressing my opinion is the potentially the candidate’s likelihood to win, provided I influence some people into holding my opinion.
This is not damage to campaigning materials of the candidate campaigning – other students are not campaigning materials belonging to the candidate. I am not damaging and corrupting them with my expression. The only way I would be doing something wrong in expressing my opinion, or in other words – “damaging” the other people participating in the election – would be if I was coercing them into adopting my opinion. However, whatever effect I have is voluntary on the part of the person who is influenced by it and who chooses to listen to it. Thus, the effects of my expression are not damage to campaigning materials.
It may be argued that it is not the campaigning materials that I am damaging with my expression, but the effect that the campaigning materials could have potentially had on the individuals viewing them. However, the effect that the campaigning materials have on the individual is something beyond the control of the candidate. The person running can only safe-guard and protect their campaigning materials, they cannot take the extra step of making sure that we all get influenced by their materials in the way that they intended for us to be influenced by them.
Neither am I campaigning when I merely express my opinion, so I cannot be treated as a campaigner under the policy. I am not made a campaigner merely by agreeing/disagreeing with a candidate’s platform and expressing this, and participating in the democratic process. The policies cannot be stretched to include a mere supporter as a campaigner unless I am a directly designated as being in the candidate’s party, and acting as a designated representative of their platform. The rules for campaigning do not apply to me as an individual who is not campaigning but is merely participating “on the other side of the campaign”.
The election committee’s statements cannot be upheld by those policies. To enforce that statement they would have to explicitly write into those policies that I cannot intentionally damage the effect of campaigning materials on other individuals, and only then would I not be able to publicly express my opinion. As it stands, regardless of what the election committee may say at the meetings - I am not going against any of the policy’s rules when I express my opinion. My msn name, the conversations I have with individuals, and groups of people, the opinions I express on this blog and in other places – are not subject to those policies. I can change my msn name, and I can talk to a group of people about the candidates, or write things about them, etc. and not be in violation of the policies as they are stated.
When I saw this post I was outraged (although I cannot say I was surprised), I even had a question prepared for the debate about this. But I could not find the specific part of the policy which allows them to make such statement. If this is merely an interpretation of the election committee then the election committee is misguided in its interpretation and in making that statement at the SRA meeting. They cannot enforce such a rule without changing the wording in their policies. And if the wording of the policies is changed then it would be a violation of our freedoms as individuals, and we can hold the elections committee/msu policies accountable for violating those – and the penalties for that are much greater then the revoking of msu membership with which they threaten student expression.
In addition to being unjustified, the statement made by the elections committee should have received huge outrage from the students representatives. My question is – did it?
Student representatives are meant to be representing the voice of the students, this was a statement of the elections committee that I’m sure, if students found out, would lead many of us into a frenzy.
If you or anyone else were there – what was the response of the SRA’s?
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