The 2004 AUSU election closed at midnight on March 20, marking the end of a successful online voting project that was in the works for many months.
Mail-based election were an incredibly costly endeavor, at about $30,000 per election, with most of that money going to postage. The very low response rate and small number of candidates in past elections has made the cost of the election often seem very excessive.
This year AUSU members were finally allowed to vote online. In contrast to some of the problems that have been experienced with computer polls in other universities, the AUSU polling system worked very well, and provided more than enough information for the CRO to confirm the accuracy of the vote. AUSU web staff and the website contractor were on hand for the entire election period to monitor for problems, but it was a quiet week. With the total election cost coming in at under $1500, this election has been a great success all around.
Another boon this year was the higher than normal number of candidates (at the close of registration, there were 14 eligible candidates for the nine positions – a total of twelve remained on the ballot while two dropped out), and many more students expressed interest in becoming involved with AUSU council, or in running for a future election.
The votes have been tallied, and the new council announced as of 8:00 pm, March 23rd. Your new AUSU council will be comprised of:
Karl Low (incumbent)
Shannon Maguire
Mac McInnis (incumbent)
Teresa Neuman (incumbent)
Joy Krys
Lisa Priebe
Cynthia Stobbe
Lonita Fraser
Stacey Steele (incumbent)
The new council will take over by the end of April, after a brief changeover period. At that time, the new AUSU executive will be elected by an internal vote of council.
For vote totals and a listing of all candidates, see the AUSU front page, or the AUSU This Month column in this issue.