The United slate has won the 2012 UMSU general elections, according to preliminary results released by the office of the Chief Returning Officer.
Here is a breakdown of the preliminary results per candidate:
Executive positions
President
Bilan Arte (United) — 1,235
Thianne Diop (Free Radicals) — 207
Aaron Griffiths (No More Tears) — Not reported
Vice-President Advocacy
Jennifer Black (United) — 1,401
Sarah-Marie Chaillot (Free Radicals) — 334
Vice-president Student Services
Ronnie Cruz (United) — 1,363
Trevor Samec (Free Radicals) — 367
Vice-president Internal
Justin Paquin (United) — 1,363
Matt Moffat (Free Radicals) — 378
Vice-president External
Kwesi Bruce (United) — 1,374
Chantal Shivanna Ramraj (Free Radicals) — 367
Tallies of votes for independent candidate Aaron Griffiths, who is currently appealing his disqualification from the 2012 UMSU general elections, were not provided to the Manitoban at press time.
The Manitoban had been informed by the office of the CRO that Griffiths’s votes would still be tallied, and the final results would be released pending the decision of the appeals committee.
Community representatives
Aboriginal students’ representative
Kyra Wilson
Yes — 135
No — 20
International students’ representative
Monica Igweagu — 163
Moazzam Faisal — 111
Can Liu — 105
LGBTTQ* students’ representative
Kyle St Godard
Yes — 200
No — 25
Womens’ representative
Irene Fubara-Manuel
Yes — 739
No — 80
Voter turnout
The preliminary results suggest that turnout for the 2012 UMSU general election was a disappointing 7.3 per cent. This is down five per cent from last year’s 12.3 per cent and significantly down from the nearly 20 per cent who turned up to vote in 2009.
We will be updating this story as more details become available.
With notes from Leif Larsen
The % of voters would be double if they counted all the people that only went to the polls to ONLY vote Griffith in. This is so upsetting
7.3% voter turnout is probably about 1750 votes.
Seems to me like just looking at the number of votes unaccounted for in the Presidential race, that Griffiths probably got around 250-300 – probably good enough for a distant second.
Do you have any proof to back up your statement that Griffiths pulled in what would be well over a thousand voters who didn’t vote for anyone else?
No they wouldn’t have counted the people who went to the polls and only voted for president (Griffiths) and didn’t care for voting for the rest of the candidates, because its pointless. A whole lot of people were excited for this election. They were excited for Griffiths, no one else.
Are you sure that votes for Griffiths, blank ballots and spoilt ballots weren’t included in the turnout? It seems logical to assume that they would be.
You’re making the claim that:
1. People who voted for only Griffiths weren’t included in the turnout
2. There were enough people who did vote for only Griffiths that it would double the turnout
Do you have proof for either of these claims? Were you a ballot counter or scrutineer for this election?
I was a scrutineer in 2008, in a similar situation – there was one slate (the Regressive Conservatives) which only had two people on it and was running on a very different platform as the other two. In spite of their political differences, very few people voted for just the Regressive Conservatives – most of their supporters wound up voting for people from the other slates for the other three spots.
Claiming that Griffiths got this many votes seems like an extraordinary claim, especially when it is not backed up by anything.
Yay more of the same. The same cookie cutter slate from last year, same promises, nothing delivered. The student body at the campus needs to wake up and realize they’re getting fucked by a insider system that threw them overboard 10 years ago. Oh but wait, UPASSES and a Racial Rep!… only one of which will actually materialize, I’ll let you guess which one.
I’m guessing you use implicit terms not to get censored. I hope everyone gets it tho