News Brief: KSA byelection results released, first council meeting of semester rescheduled again
The official results of the Kwantlen Student Association’s byelection were released to council on Nov. 3. Of the 16 candidates, 13 were elected to council positions.
Navpreet Singh was elected as the Civic Plaza campus representative, Henry Chang as the Richmond campus rep, Abdullah Randhawa as the Surrey campus rep, and Karan Maushel as students of colour rep. Destiny Lang was also elected as the first queer students rep the KSA has had in at least two years, and Rupinder Hundai was elected as the new women’s rep after Manmeet Brar resigned from the position on Sept. 30.
Of the three faculty of arts rep positions, two were filled by the elected candidates Earndeep Singh Kandola and Divya Sachdeva. Guntas Kochar, the only candidate who ran for the science and horticulture rep position, was elected. Four of five business rep positions were filled by the elected candidates Dilnoor Kaur, Diljot Singh Narula, Manroopbir Sidhu, and Gurjot Singh.
Positions that remain vacant are tech campus rep, Indigenous students rep, mature students rep, academic and career advancement rep, design rep, health rep, and trades & technology rep. There is also one remaining business rep and one arts rep position vacant.
According to the official results provided to The Runner, 10.6 per cent of 20,150 of eligible voters voted in the election.
In this year’s election, multiple individuals raised concerns with the election process with emails stating that multiple candidates were allegedly forcing voters “to cast ballots or change their votes after having already cast for a different candidate.” However, no official complaints were made to Chief Electoral Officer Ron Laufer and so no further action was made.
“It was the candidates for Surrey Campus Representative that elicited the vast majority of concerned communication I received during the election process. I however received no official complaints during the election process,” reads Laufer’s final report.
“With the by-election now concluded, we can say that we still had many of the same issues arise as seen previously in the general election. The quantity of these incidents were lesser in number, but the severity of some of them are still very concerning,” Executive Director Ben Newsom wrote in their report.
The report also states that 1,725 of 2,141 voters were located in Surrey and suggests better advertising of online elections over email to garner a larger voter turnout.
The first council meeting of the semester has been postponed due to KSA President Armaan Dhillon and VP External Affairs Karan Singh having technical difficulties attending the meeting online while traveling by plane to the National General Meeting of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) in Ottawa.
VP Finance and Students with Disabilities Rep Lesli Sangha was in attendance. After the election, attendance of nine members is now required to meet quorum in council meetings.
The first council meeting of the semester has been rescheduled to Nov. 18 at 10:00 am in the KSA Board Room on Surrey campus or through Zoom. Students can email info@kusa.ca to join.
According to KSA bylaws, the council is required to have a council meeting once a month. Their last council meeting was Aug.19, and their special meeting of council was Aug. 26 when they passed the tuition coverage benefit for executive members.
