KSA elections cost students $18,000
Kwantlen’s KSA election costs students more than expected.
Unexpected legal bills and staffing charges add up.
By Matt DiMera
[news editor]
The cost of this year’s KSA elections rose to over $18,000, despite earlier assurances that online voting would save money.
Chief Returning Officer Fred Schiffner strongly recommended that KSA elections not be held online if the same system was used again.
Schiffner presented the election results and his final report to council on Wednesday. He said that he had originally charged $3,500 less than his usual $10,000 fee for this election because it was being held online.
He also presented a secondary bill for $1,120 for poll workers to patrol campuses to check for campaign violations as well as an additional bill of $7,503.38 for legal advice he sought during the election. The total tab for election-related costs was $18,763.38 as of press time.
According to Schiffner, in recent years there have been no legal costs attached to elections but this year there were multiple complaints that required advice from lawyers. He advised that the KSA should consider reversing their ban on election slates in order to avoid some of the problems that plagued this election.
“The minute you close off slates, you create problems,” he said.
He also recommended that future candidates be limited in how many posters they can put up.
Shanal Prasad, director of finance, was thoroughly disappointed by the experiment with online voting.
“I think that it’s definitely a waste of money,” said Prasad. “I don’t really understand why we are going to stick with this. Online voting doesn’t work for us.”
