‘Not a good turnout’: Only 553 ballots cast in the 2025 KSA election

The Kwantlen Student Association announced its 2026 general election results on Feb. 24. This year, voter turnout was just 3.6 per cent — nearly half of last year’s turnout.

Of the 15,309 student voters, only 553 voted. Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s student population also decreased by more than 4,000 eligible voters from the 2024 to 2026 election, due to a decline in international student enrolment.

Last year, voter turnout was 6.1 per cent, 6.9 per cent in 2024, and 15.7 per cent in 2023. The KSA does not have voter turnout data for prior elections.

“This is not a good turnout,” Chief Returning Officer Ajay Kumar says. “But if you look at the past elections, this is exactly what’s been happening for the past couple of years.”

KPU students elected 17 candidates, yet nine positions still remain vacant. Council may decide to run a byelection to fill the empty seats.

Of the 14 positions candidates ran for, only five had multiple candidates. That means for nine positions, students voted either yes or no to a singular candidate.

Kumar says he received 43 nomination packages, yet only 25 candidates were accepted because of disqualifications.

Except for one candidate, Kumar says nobody filed a formal complaint or appeal.

“So technically, they didn’t even complain.”

Constituency representatives

Five constituency representatives were elected.

KSA council will have an Indigenous students representative for the first time since 2019 — when the position was then called the Aboriginal students representative — with the election of Elysia Ritchotte. Ritchotte is from Treaty 4 territory and is of Cree, Métis, and Lebanese ancestry, as per the candidate’s statement.

During the 2023 election, Diljot Narula was disqualified for running as an Indigenous student representative when he could not provide a basis for his self-identification as an Indigenous student.

Sukhpalpreet Singh was elected as the students of colour representative, Rukmandeep Kaur is the women’s representative, and the students of disabilities representative is Mehakpreet Singh, who was listed as Mehak Jaura on the ballot. Students re-elected Ashutosh Dhingra for his second term as the mature students representative.

Japliv Kaur ran for the queer students representative position but was not elected, receiving 227 no votes to 178 yes votes. No candidates ran as the international students representative.

Campus representatives

Three of the five open campus representative positions were filled. Voters elected Gurnoor Singh for Civic Plaza, Sukhdev Singh for Cloverdale, and Anirudh Agnihotri for the Surrey campus.

Pushpinder Kaushal ran for the Richmond campus representative but was not elected by a difference of just three votes — the lowest margin of any other campus or constituency candidate. Langley campus candidate Sukhpreet Gill was not elected by a difference of nine votes.

Faculty representatives

A total of nine faculty representatives were elected in arts, science and horticulture, and business. 

All three arts faculty positions were filled — Harkomalpreet Singh, Harwinder Singh, and Sukhmandeep Singh were elected.

Four of five business representatives positions were filled with the election of Gurustat Singh, Jasman Singh, and Yuvraj Singh, as well as the re-election of current KSA President and Vice-President University Affairs Gurdit Singh. 

Business candidate Rahul Vinayak was disqualified post-polling as he is a KPU employee and works for the university’s Sport and Recreation department as a student assistant. His contract ends before the 2026-27 council’s term begins on April 1. As per the KSA’s regulations, individuals can be disqualified if they are an employee or hold an elected or appointed position at KPU.

“The rules were pretty clear that you can’t even file a nomination if you’re an employee,” Kumar says.

No candidates ran for the design, health, trade and technology, and academic and career advancement positions, resulting in five faculty representative vacancies.

For both the arts and science and horticulture positions, voters selected the candidates they wanted to cast their ballot for.

However, for the business representative positions, it was a yes and no vote for all five candidates. The official election results do not state which candidate each yes and no vote was for.

Polling for the KSA elections was held in person across all campuses on Feb. 12 and 13. 

The Runner verified the 2025 KSA election results with Simply Voting.