At the next beep the ULSU elections will get underway
‘Never take two clocks to sea’ is an old mariners saying. And much as we do enjoy a good election tussle here at vote Towers we are quite simply stunned at the manner in which the ULSU nominations descended into farce on Friday last with an appeal against the acceptance of a nomination by the returning officer because it had been handed in late based on reference to CCTV footage of the SU lobby area and the speaking clock.
Now our interest is purely in see the usual bloodletting that an election would lead to. But being a fan of electoral battle doesn’t mean we like to see the SU starting off this election season by eating their young.
The broad sequence of events is that the returning officer made a declaration that nominations for the sabbatical positions were closed and read out a list of those accepted. An objection against one nomination was later made, and though initially that objection was upheld it was then rescinded to allow the matter to be more thoroughly investigated. Or at least that’s one version of events and a simplistic version at that. It is hard to state anything as fact given the confused and somewhat heightened nature of the environment in the SU lobby on Friday evening.
For what it is worth, were we the individuals involved and were we to think of defending our honour we’d think about raising the following points.
The constitution is God!
First up is that the time for nomination to be accepted as per the SU constitution is 9am to 6pm, that at least seems pretty plain. Open at 9am close at 6pm, every day Monday to Friday with no time off for lunch or light snacks. That would seem to make it a pretty open and shut case when the ERB resumes its deliberations. And our expectation is that the ERB will simply rule that the 5pm deadline was merely indicative to allow the nominations to be processed in a timely manner to allow campaigning to begin and that the real constitutionally mandated deadline was 6pm. That should lead to the objection against the acceptance of the nomination being dismissed and then campaigns would simply get underway as per usual. To dilly or indeed dally much beyond say lunch time Monday would seem to suggest that the campaigns of both candidates would have to be delayed and hence unduly truncated and perhaps necessitating the postponement of the election.
If the ERB starts looking beyond the SU constitution then a number of other areas of interest arise for us. Of course all of this is mute in terms of the acceptance of the nomination if the deadline of 5pm was incorrect. However, it would be of significance come the running of the campaigns if the competence, impartiality and intervention of the ERB are seen to be called into question.
Due Process
Looking at the nomination/electoral process a mechanism doesn’t appear to explicitly exist for an appeal against someone else’s nomination. Once the Returning officer had accepted nominations there’s no system as such to unaccept them unless the returning officer themselves found out something untoward in the nomination forms. That such an objection was so readily heard by the ERB seems rather to overrule the returning officer. And the back and forth process of the objection would appear to have been made up on the spot, or least the ERB was operating without clear guidance from the constitution. The person in loci parentis (well not a parent but at least a grown-up who isn’t a student) here is the returning officer. And what should have happened was they say that they deemed the nomination to have been handed in on time and that’s that.
The returning officer
The returning officer is the one charged with accepting nominations and it is clear that his understanding at that time it was that the submission of the nomination in question was timely. Fact is the returning officer didn’t have access to the time as per the CCTV footage and so was making a regular human judgement about what the time was at that time. All this ‘time at the time’ stuff is going to get really confusing after a while but bare with us and we’ll try and be as clear as we can.
The accepting of nominations in any election is down to the returning officer. He accepted the nomination in question and we've been involved in a few elections down the years and we've never come across a situation where the authority of the returning officer in accepting a nomination has been successfully challenged. If the returning officer accepted the nomination in good faith in what he, at that point in time, deemed to be a timely manner then retrospective invalidation of that acceptance because some external source, not available to him or anyone else present, happens to indicate that it was in fact a couple of minutes later than he, the returning officer, then believed it to be is, in my view, unsafe.
Neither the returning officer nor anyone else in the lobby had access to the speaking clock and they simply went with what they knew, at that stage, to be the time. In almost all situations of this sort a decision having been made in good faith with the information available to the person at the time would be upheld.
And where does this lead us next if someone's name on the nomination form isn't precisely as on their student registration will that lead to invalidation of the acceptance? If the returning officer can’t precisely make out whether someone’s name is ‘Robert’ or ‘Rooert’ even though their ID matches to a Robert will that be cast out? Or that the blue colour pens used for signatures are different. Typically a reasonable degree of latitude is allowed up to the person in the role of returning officer as to the required degree precision in such matters.
In the normal run of things, most returning officers would have had the straight up backing of the authorities for their decision to accept the nomination. That the ERB didn't appear to just have the returning officer's back as to his decision is a little bit more interventionist that would be the normal practice. This is not to suggest the ERB was in some way acting in malice of forethought but rather that it may have acted erroneously because it deemed speed to be of the essence. There is no reason at this point to question the integrity of the members of the ERB. However, the members of the ERB have to be extra careful to not be seen to involve themselves in any way with any of the campaigns. Individual ERB members conversing in private with either camp is dangerous. Much like Caesar’s wife it is as important to be seen to be above reproach as it is to be above reproach.
ERB
It would be our view given what we know to date that the ERB acted in undue haste in ruling on the matter. A better course would have been to gather what evidence they could and which was deemed necessary and then to adjourn until the following Monday morning before making a decision. With little or no time provided for by the lack of a well documented procedure to consider the objection fully and nor to consult with the SU constitution in depth they may have simply made a mistake in upholding the objection as they did. The existence of and the access granted to CCTV footage of a public space are matters best left to the civil libertarians amongst us but given that the time as stamped on the CCTV footage was not on display in the public lobby area of the SU where the nominations were being received then it’s admissibility for consideration is problematic.
There is a suggestion doing the rounds that one particular member of the ERB may actually pre-emptively volunteered information to and advised the appellant that they could and indeed should appeal the acceptance of the nomination. This would seem to us if it did occur to breach the rules on the ERB in that no one on the ERB should be involved in any campaign. There are many fine lines between advising, volunteering, answering a simple question and actually urging someone towards a course of action. And one would hope that these rumours are without foundation.
The Appellant
And we would have to question the advice wherever it came from that the appellant should challenge the nomination of someone else on grounds such as what time was it really. No sabbatical officer would realistically want to be the George W. Bush of SU politics by assuming office on the basis of a committee ruling instead of an election.
And you‘d have to wonder (or we’d have to wonder) at what kind of SU officer the appellant would be if this is how they would react in this sort of stressful situation. It is reasonable to ascribe the appellant as the SU insider in this scenario having contributed heavily to the SU publication over the year and being on from what we understand quite friendly terms with the current incumbent. So the SU finds itself in a dispute between a regular Joe Student and one of their own and ends up siding against the regular Joe? That’s not a pretty picture for anyone to be seeing.
Times the tide.
Going beyond and we mean really beyond the mere question of what time was it. As we’re already noted the ULSU has consistently opened nominations at 9am meaning that the end time for the day should be 6pm as per the constitutional definition of the university day. But there are other temporal issues. There are no time stamps on any of the nomination forms accepted and it would seem receipts for submission were not provided to all candidates. So it is not possible to exclude the possibility that none of the other nominations were submitted within the 9am to 6pm time frame at all. Perhaps they were all handed in at 11pm the previous evening? Or at 6am on Tuesday? The tediously nitpicky could have a field day with this, and God knows we could do with a field day or two.
In evidence of the confusion that existed in the SU lobby there exists is a piece of audio which is worth listening too if only because of the inconsistent quality. We’ll link to it when it’s passed onto us. What it is does show clearly is one member of the ERB asserting that nominations were closed before then knocking on the door of the returning officer and then re-emerging and then asserting that the nominations would be closed by the returning officer in 1 minute 30 secs at 5 o’ clock and then the returning officer closes the nominations having accepted the now disputed nomination form. Remember it is the returning officer’s job to close the nominations, no one else’s.
As for the time displayed on the surveillance camera was this available to those submitting and accepting the nominations. It would appear it wasn't and the only devices in the SU lobby that had time on them are two machines off to the side and which would have been obscured by the crowds (ok half a dozen) standing in front of them which had times as of Friday evening that didn't even agree with one another. And it's not clear whether they agreed with the time on the CCTV either. And it is too late to check that now. Chain of evidence and all that malarkey.
It’s all a bit of a mess. Still it’s kind of excitement too!
Now our interest is purely in see the usual bloodletting that an election would lead to. But being a fan of electoral battle doesn’t mean we like to see the SU starting off this election season by eating their young.
The broad sequence of events is that the returning officer made a declaration that nominations for the sabbatical positions were closed and read out a list of those accepted. An objection against one nomination was later made, and though initially that objection was upheld it was then rescinded to allow the matter to be more thoroughly investigated. Or at least that’s one version of events and a simplistic version at that. It is hard to state anything as fact given the confused and somewhat heightened nature of the environment in the SU lobby on Friday evening.
For what it is worth, were we the individuals involved and were we to think of defending our honour we’d think about raising the following points.
The constitution is God!
First up is that the time for nomination to be accepted as per the SU constitution is 9am to 6pm, that at least seems pretty plain. Open at 9am close at 6pm, every day Monday to Friday with no time off for lunch or light snacks. That would seem to make it a pretty open and shut case when the ERB resumes its deliberations. And our expectation is that the ERB will simply rule that the 5pm deadline was merely indicative to allow the nominations to be processed in a timely manner to allow campaigning to begin and that the real constitutionally mandated deadline was 6pm. That should lead to the objection against the acceptance of the nomination being dismissed and then campaigns would simply get underway as per usual. To dilly or indeed dally much beyond say lunch time Monday would seem to suggest that the campaigns of both candidates would have to be delayed and hence unduly truncated and perhaps necessitating the postponement of the election.
If the ERB starts looking beyond the SU constitution then a number of other areas of interest arise for us. Of course all of this is mute in terms of the acceptance of the nomination if the deadline of 5pm was incorrect. However, it would be of significance come the running of the campaigns if the competence, impartiality and intervention of the ERB are seen to be called into question.
Due Process
Looking at the nomination/electoral process a mechanism doesn’t appear to explicitly exist for an appeal against someone else’s nomination. Once the Returning officer had accepted nominations there’s no system as such to unaccept them unless the returning officer themselves found out something untoward in the nomination forms. That such an objection was so readily heard by the ERB seems rather to overrule the returning officer. And the back and forth process of the objection would appear to have been made up on the spot, or least the ERB was operating without clear guidance from the constitution. The person in loci parentis (well not a parent but at least a grown-up who isn’t a student) here is the returning officer. And what should have happened was they say that they deemed the nomination to have been handed in on time and that’s that.
The returning officer
The returning officer is the one charged with accepting nominations and it is clear that his understanding at that time it was that the submission of the nomination in question was timely. Fact is the returning officer didn’t have access to the time as per the CCTV footage and so was making a regular human judgement about what the time was at that time. All this ‘time at the time’ stuff is going to get really confusing after a while but bare with us and we’ll try and be as clear as we can.
The accepting of nominations in any election is down to the returning officer. He accepted the nomination in question and we've been involved in a few elections down the years and we've never come across a situation where the authority of the returning officer in accepting a nomination has been successfully challenged. If the returning officer accepted the nomination in good faith in what he, at that point in time, deemed to be a timely manner then retrospective invalidation of that acceptance because some external source, not available to him or anyone else present, happens to indicate that it was in fact a couple of minutes later than he, the returning officer, then believed it to be is, in my view, unsafe.
Neither the returning officer nor anyone else in the lobby had access to the speaking clock and they simply went with what they knew, at that stage, to be the time. In almost all situations of this sort a decision having been made in good faith with the information available to the person at the time would be upheld.
And where does this lead us next if someone's name on the nomination form isn't precisely as on their student registration will that lead to invalidation of the acceptance? If the returning officer can’t precisely make out whether someone’s name is ‘Robert’ or ‘Rooert’ even though their ID matches to a Robert will that be cast out? Or that the blue colour pens used for signatures are different. Typically a reasonable degree of latitude is allowed up to the person in the role of returning officer as to the required degree precision in such matters.
In the normal run of things, most returning officers would have had the straight up backing of the authorities for their decision to accept the nomination. That the ERB didn't appear to just have the returning officer's back as to his decision is a little bit more interventionist that would be the normal practice. This is not to suggest the ERB was in some way acting in malice of forethought but rather that it may have acted erroneously because it deemed speed to be of the essence. There is no reason at this point to question the integrity of the members of the ERB. However, the members of the ERB have to be extra careful to not be seen to involve themselves in any way with any of the campaigns. Individual ERB members conversing in private with either camp is dangerous. Much like Caesar’s wife it is as important to be seen to be above reproach as it is to be above reproach.
ERB
It would be our view given what we know to date that the ERB acted in undue haste in ruling on the matter. A better course would have been to gather what evidence they could and which was deemed necessary and then to adjourn until the following Monday morning before making a decision. With little or no time provided for by the lack of a well documented procedure to consider the objection fully and nor to consult with the SU constitution in depth they may have simply made a mistake in upholding the objection as they did. The existence of and the access granted to CCTV footage of a public space are matters best left to the civil libertarians amongst us but given that the time as stamped on the CCTV footage was not on display in the public lobby area of the SU where the nominations were being received then it’s admissibility for consideration is problematic.
There is a suggestion doing the rounds that one particular member of the ERB may actually pre-emptively volunteered information to and advised the appellant that they could and indeed should appeal the acceptance of the nomination. This would seem to us if it did occur to breach the rules on the ERB in that no one on the ERB should be involved in any campaign. There are many fine lines between advising, volunteering, answering a simple question and actually urging someone towards a course of action. And one would hope that these rumours are without foundation.
The Appellant
And we would have to question the advice wherever it came from that the appellant should challenge the nomination of someone else on grounds such as what time was it really. No sabbatical officer would realistically want to be the George W. Bush of SU politics by assuming office on the basis of a committee ruling instead of an election.
And you‘d have to wonder (or we’d have to wonder) at what kind of SU officer the appellant would be if this is how they would react in this sort of stressful situation. It is reasonable to ascribe the appellant as the SU insider in this scenario having contributed heavily to the SU publication over the year and being on from what we understand quite friendly terms with the current incumbent. So the SU finds itself in a dispute between a regular Joe Student and one of their own and ends up siding against the regular Joe? That’s not a pretty picture for anyone to be seeing.
Times the tide.
Going beyond and we mean really beyond the mere question of what time was it. As we’re already noted the ULSU has consistently opened nominations at 9am meaning that the end time for the day should be 6pm as per the constitutional definition of the university day. But there are other temporal issues. There are no time stamps on any of the nomination forms accepted and it would seem receipts for submission were not provided to all candidates. So it is not possible to exclude the possibility that none of the other nominations were submitted within the 9am to 6pm time frame at all. Perhaps they were all handed in at 11pm the previous evening? Or at 6am on Tuesday? The tediously nitpicky could have a field day with this, and God knows we could do with a field day or two.
In evidence of the confusion that existed in the SU lobby there exists is a piece of audio which is worth listening too if only because of the inconsistent quality. We’ll link to it when it’s passed onto us. What it is does show clearly is one member of the ERB asserting that nominations were closed before then knocking on the door of the returning officer and then re-emerging and then asserting that the nominations would be closed by the returning officer in 1 minute 30 secs at 5 o’ clock and then the returning officer closes the nominations having accepted the now disputed nomination form. Remember it is the returning officer’s job to close the nominations, no one else’s.
As for the time displayed on the surveillance camera was this available to those submitting and accepting the nominations. It would appear it wasn't and the only devices in the SU lobby that had time on them are two machines off to the side and which would have been obscured by the crowds (ok half a dozen) standing in front of them which had times as of Friday evening that didn't even agree with one another. And it's not clear whether they agreed with the time on the CCTV either. And it is too late to check that now. Chain of evidence and all that malarkey.
It’s all a bit of a mess. Still it’s kind of excitement too!
Labels: Aoife Ní Raghallaigh, David Dolphin, PPO, predictions, UL elections, ulsu
posted by UL Vote for me at 9:38 AM
1 Comments:
What about the rest of the people running.As interesting as the situation was it would be great to hear about who is actually running!
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